US military announces 10,000 more post-"surge" troops in Iraq

Ham refused to give an estimate of troop levels by the end of Bush’s presidential term, calling it “premature” to talk of future reductions. “This will be very much conditions-based,” he said.

Ham’s remarks came two weeks after US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said a “pause” in the drawdown of US forces “probably does make sense.”

Ham said that many of the additional troops are needed for guarding the extensive “detention operations” the US maintains in Iraq, an allusion to the tens of thousands of additional Iraqis who have been imprisoned by the US in the course of the surge.

The increased number of US troops has been used to carry out massive aerial bombardments and the violent repression of resistance to the US colonial-style occupation. Sectarian violence has been diminished through deals made between the US military and sections of the Sunni and Shiite elite, together with a process of ethnic cleansing, overseen by the US military, that has transformed large sections of the country into exclusive Shiite and Sunni zones.