Global Policy Forum

By David E. Sanger

President Bush agreed today to begin negotiations in the United Nations Security Council to authorize a multinational force for Iraq but insisted that the troops be placed under American command, according to senior administration officials. Mr. Bush's decision came in a meeting this afternoon with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. While not unexpected, it was a tacit admission that the current American-dominated force is stretched too thin. It also amounts to one of the most significant changes in strategy since the end of major combat in Iraq.

The White House acted just as a new Congressional study showed that the Army lacked the active-duty troops to keep the current occupation force in Iraq past March, without getting extra help from either other services and reserves or from other nations, or without spending tens of billions to vastly expand its size. One senior official said that Mr. Bush's national security team envisions withdrawing the majority of American forces now in Iraq within 18 months to two years, and "making this peacekeeping operation look like the kind that are familiar to us," in Kosovo, Bosnia and other places where the United Nations has taken the major role.

But it is far from clear that France and Germany, which led the opposition to a Security Council resolution authorizing the war, will agree to the terms or the language that Mr. Powell plans to circulate, perhaps as early as late this week. India, Turkey and Pakistan have indicated they might contribute troops to a multi-national force, but only if it is authorized by a new United Nations resolution. Another senior administration official said tonight that Mr. Bush and Mr. Powell discussed ways to persuade the Security Council members to create such a force, and added that Mr. Powell "is going to be working with our colleagues and allies to talk about language that can bring maximum, effective resources to bear" in Iraq.

The study, released today by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, was requested by Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, a critic of the Iraq war and the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, who was frustrated by the Bush administration's reluctance to discuss its personnel options in Iraq or the long-term cost of a sustained occupation force. The report said that if the Pentagon stuck to its plan of rotating active-duty Army troops out of Iraq after a year, it would be able to sustain a force of only 67,000 to 106,000 active duty and reserve Army and Marine forces. A larger force would put at risk the military's operations elsewhere around the globe, the study said.

With Mr. Bush concerned about the ramifications of continued daily casualties in Iraq and the possibility that he may need forces elsewhere, perhaps including the Korean Peninsula if the nuclear crisis there worsens, the need to draw more international forces became "very clear in the past few weeks," a senior State Department official said today. Last week, floating what appeared to be a trial balloon, the deputy secretary of state, Richard L. Armitage, said the United States was considering a multinational force that would be under the United Nations flag but, he added, an "American would be the U.N. commander." That was essentially the model for American forces stationed in South Korea after the end of the Korean War, 50 years ago, and it has been repeated elsewhere in the world. Currently, there are about 180,000 American troops in Iraq and Kuwait and 21,000 non-American troops, about half of them from Britain.

Military planners have long said the United States will require substantial assistance from other countries and from Iraqis to remain in the country over the long term, and today's study underscored that need. It is also the first time a government agency has placed a date on the point when the American military may buckle under the strain of the Iraqi deployment unless it gets significantly more help from other countries. "When you connect the dots, this report shows we cannot possibly sustain the mission in Iraq at current U.S. active-duty troop strength, even if we do get modestly more allied help," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution. "The only hope otherwise is to turn the security mission entirely back to the Iraqis within one to two years, which is unlikely."

The limiting factor for the Pentagon is not necessarily money. Rather, the problem is the Army's need to keep occupying troops fresh using a unit rotation system, where a unit serves in Iraq for 6 to 12 months and then comes home for rest and training, replaced by another unit. The report says the Pentagon does not have enough personnel to keep the troops fresh and still conduct operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia and Korea. "The need to maintain levels of training and readiness, limit family separation and involuntary mobilization and retain high-quality personnel would most likely constrain the U.S. occupation force to be smaller than its current size," the report said.

There was one bit of good news for the administration in the report: The budget office said the Pentagon's recent estimate that it was spending about $3.9 billion a month in Iraq might be overstated. That figure may include some one-time costs that would not be necessary in a longer occupation, the report said. The report's authors acknowledged that they did not evaluate the potential for allies to contribute to the occupation force. The report also did not comment on the impact of Iraqi security forces on the calculation.

The American military could field a force of up to 106,000 if it breaks with the past and uses Marine Corps units, Army Special Forces groups and National Guard combat units in Iraq, the report says. Such units have generally not been used for peacekeeping, and the budget office said using them would bring the cost of the occupation to $19 billion a year.

Alternatively, the Pentagon could increase the size of the Army to meet its new demands. Recruiting, training and equipping two new Army divisions would require an up-front cost of up to $19 billion and take five years, the report said, and it would cost an extra $9 billion to $10 billion a year to put in place in Iraq. That would bring the total cost of the occupation force up to 129,000 troops and cost up to $29 billion a year, the report said. Senator Byrd said the report proved the Bush administration failed to inform the nation of the true costs of invading Iraq, and said the United States must now get support from NATO and the United Nations to sustain the occupation. Col. Jay DeFrank, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the Defense Department had not had a chance to review and analyze today's report, but that it would make sure that commanders get the force they need.

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