How many U.S. troops will remain in Iraq?

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - If Senate Democrats could enact their plan for Iraq, how many American troops would remain there?

That’s not a question to which Democratic leaders gave a precise answer Tuesday.

The Democratic vehicle for trying to change Iraq policy is the Levin-Reed amendment which says that some U.S. troops could remain in Iraq for counter-terrorism and training of Iraqis, after the bulk of the 158,000 now deployed were withdrawn.

The amendment’s co-sponsor, Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters Tuesday that talk of specific numbers was a distraction.

“I’m not going to get into numbers — because it changes the subject from what the issue is,” Levin said. "The issue is whether we’re going to change course, whether we’re going to begin to reduce our troops….”

Lack of specificity no problem for two senators
The amendment speaks of “a limited presence” of American soldiers in Iraq after a reduction takes place. It isn’t more specific than that.

That lack of specificity is not a problem for two of the Democratic senators who won last November as part of an election that some pundits interpreted as a referendum on Iraq and a call to “bring the troops home.”

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said the Levin-Reed measure was “a step in the right direction. It still gives the commander-in-chief the flexibility he needs as commander-in-chief.”

When will all U.S. troops leave Iraq?

He added, “there was a significant number of troops in the Middle East before we started this thing; there’s going to be some troops in the Middle East; there’s U.S. interests involved and that’s the nature of the beast.”

Tester said, “We’ve been there (in Iraq) for four years and I don’t think you can anticipate that everybody is going to be out. I don’t think that’s going to be the case. There’ll be some left, as needed. That’s his job as commander in chief.”

But enacting the Levin-Reed measure was important as a statement of the need for a new strategy in Iraq, the Montana Democrat said.

People in Minnesota 'are practical'
“The people in our state are practical about this,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D- Minn., who said her constituents would not be disappointed that there wouldn’t be total troop withdrawal under the Democratic plan. “People are practical about the fact that they know we need Special Forces there, we need to have people guarding the embassies; we need to have people training police. What they want to do is to make it clear we’re not going to be there indefinitely…. This is very consistent with what the people wanted.”  

She acknowledged that if the Levin-Reed amendment became law, she and Bush could well have different ideas about what a “limited presence” in Iraq would be, but she said, “When you have the whole country watching this administration and cynical about this administration, they can’t say a limited presence is 150,000.”

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