US says no plans to boost troops further in Iraq

WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) Persistent violence in Iraq is forcing the United States to boost troop levels there, but Pentagon officials said today there are no plans now to extend the tours of more troops beyond 3,500 already notified.

The US force in Iraq has reached 132,000 troops, a gain of roughly 5,000 this week after Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld extended the year-old tour of the Alaska-based 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team by up to four months.

The move was the latest evidence that administration officials' hopes for significant cuts in the size of the US force are unlikely to be realized in the coming months.

Because the brigade's replacement unit already has arrived, delaying the 172nd's departure increases the size of the overall US force. Several times in this war, the Pentagon has extended tours of units to create a temporary troop increase to address immediate security concerns.

''There's no move at this point to extend anyone else,'' said a senior Army official.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he expects the US force in Iraq to hover around 134,000 troops in the coming months.

President George W Bush, Rumsfeld and Army Gen. George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, have expressed the desire for troop cuts in Iraq.

Opinion polls have shown growing unease with the war among Americans, and Bush's Republican Party is fighting to retain control of Congress in November elections.

Hundreds of the 172nd's soldiers had returned to Alaska, and families have expressed shock and disappointment that some of them may be sent back to Iraq.

Pentagon policy is for Army units to serve 12-month tours in Iraq and Marine Corps units to serve seven-month tours.

''A year's a long time over here, and none of us look forward to being extended,'' said Col. John Tully, who commands another Army brigade operating south of Baghdad.

'DON'T LIKE IT' ''And we don't like it, but we're soldiers and we do what we're told,'' Tully told reporters at the Pentagon from Iraq.

The next major units due to leave Iraq are a brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, now in the process of departing, and three brigades of the 101st Airborne Division, due out in September, the Army said. Brigades have about 3,500 troops.

The extension of the 172nd increased to 16 the number of US combat brigades serving in Iraq, two more than were in place earlier this year. Casey last month outlined a plan to Bush in which the number of combat brigades could be trimmed to 12 by September, 10 by the end of 2006 and down to five or six by the end of 2007.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said decisions on force levels will be based on conditions on the ground. ''We've always said that those adjustments could go either way,'' he said.

Unrelenting violence more than three years into the war has thwarted hopes for troop cuts. The US military death toll in the war stands at 2,571, with another roughly 19,000 wounded, the Pentagon said.

The military is sending roughly 4,000 more US troops, including members of the 172nd, into Baghdad in a bid to curb sectarian violence, augmenting 9,000 US troops, 8,500 Iraqi army soldiers and 34,500 Iraqi police already in the capital.

REUTERS SRS BST0128