Rumsfeld: Troop Numbers May Rise

U.S. Forces Could Increase As Iraqis Prepare To Vote In Elections

(AP)  Coming off one of the deadliest months for American troops, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld indicated that the number of U.S. forces in Iraq could rise temporarily as Iraqis prepare to vote in mid-December parliamentary elections.

"We have had a pattern of increasing the number of coalition forces during periods when there was an expectation that the insurgents and terrorists would like to try to disrupt the political process," Rumsfeld told Pentagon reporters.

Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they expect insurgents to expand their attacks as the elections approach, but would not say exactly how they plan to protect U.S. soldiers from the growing number of roadside bombs.

"We'll decide what we're going to do about December as we go along, but it would not be a surprise to me that the commanders would want to have some sort of an overlap there" between arriving and departing units, Rumsfeld said.

U.S. troop levels rose to a peak of 161,000 before the Oct. 15 election on the new constitution, but dipped to 158,000 as of Tuesday. There were 159,000 U.S. troops in Iraq for the January elections.

Rumsfeld also defended the government's decision not to permit United Nations human rights investigators to meet with terror suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay. Three U.N. experts were given permission to visit the facilities in Cuba but said they won't go if they could not interview prisoners.

Rumsfeld said it was not appropriate to give U.N. investigators the same extensive access that has been granted to officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"There has to be a limit to how one does that," Rumsfeld said, adding that the government does not want to increase the number of organizations that have extensive access to the detainees. He said the decision not to provide full access to the U.N. officials was made not by the Pentagon but by the U.S. government.

Rumsfeld and Pace talked at length about the deadly homemade bombs — called improvised explosive devices — that have become a growing threat in Iraq, including killing seven service members in three separate attacks Monday.