U.S. troops in South Korea to Iraq

[desdemona]

Posted 5/17/2004 12:12 PM Updated 5/17/2004 1:20 PM

Pentagon wants to redeploy U.S. troops in South Korea to Iraq

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a sign of the Iraq war's increasing strain on the U.S. Army, the Pentagon is planning an extraordinary shift of 3,600 troops to Iraq from their garrisons in South Korea this summer, officials said Monday.

The troops are part of the 37,000 American troops permanently stationed in South Korea to deter an invasion by forces of communist North Korea. A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico, said the decision to move them to Iraq was made "at the highest levels of the U.S. government."

It is not clear whether they will go back to South Korea once their Iraq tour is complete.

President Bush said in a telephone conversation Monday with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun that the move was related to the June 30 transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government and that it in no way reduced America's treaty commitment to the defense of South Korea, officials in Seoul said.

A statement issued by Roh's office said the South Korean leader "expressed understanding." The two presidents also discussed South Korea's plan to send 3,600 of its troops to Iraq.

The move reflects not only the Army's difficulty in finding enough soldiers for the next rotation of forces into Iraq later this year but also Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's push for greater flexibility in deploying troops based anywhere in the world, including the Korean peninsula.

read the entire article here:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...us-troops_x.htm

Edited May 18, 2004 by desdemona

[Bombardier]

Interesting that they're doing this.

Well, better from South Korea than from the good ol' US.