| Posted by fluffy ® , Sep 26,2003,10:10 | MetroBlab |
NEW YORK, Sept. 24 -- President Bush ended two days of meetings with foreign leaders today without winning more international troops or funds for Iraq and with a top aide saying it could take months to achieve a new U.N. resolution backing the U.S. occupation.
Bush's failure to win a promise of fresh soldiers in meetings with the leaders of India and Pakistan -- aides said the president did not even ask -- increased the difficulty the United States will have in assembling another division of foreign troops in Iraq, which senior Pentagon officials say is the minimum needed to relieve overstretched U.S. forces.
In testimony on Capitol Hill today, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said, "We're not going to get a lot of international troops with or without a U.N. resolution. I think somewhere between zero and 10,000 or 15,000 is probably the ballpark."
And Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that more National Guard and Reserve forces could be activated if the third foreign division -- 15,000 to 20,000 troops -- is not secured within the next six weeks.
Bush's empty-handed departure after two days at the United Nations, combined with warnings from the military that it will soon need fresh U.S. troops to relieve those in Iraq, makes it increasingly likely that the U.S. military will have to rely on its own reservists to do the job -- a politically dicey move for Bush, whose domestic support already has declined because of the continuing instability in Iraq.
rest is here;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61046-2003Sep24.html