Pentagon Won't Send Brigade to Iraq as Planned

May 8, 2006 — -- In a possible first step toward an expected drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq, the Pentagon announced this morning that an Army brigade with 3,500 troops would not be going there as scheduled.

The move will not immediately affect troop levels, however, which remain at 133,000.

The 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division based in Schweinfurt, Germany, had been scheduled to begin deploying to Iraq later this month. The decision not to send the brigade was made Saturday but officially announced today.

The decision was made by Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and was "conditions based," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

"Obviously, there has been a degree of political process ... in the past couple weeks," he said.

The brigade could still be deployed to Iraq at a later date, and the troops the 2nd Brigade was supposed to replace aren't scheduled to come home until early July. But, barring a change in deployment plans, troop levels in Iraq will drop by roughly 3,500 in July as a result of today's announcement.

If the Pentagon decides to move forward with plans to reduce troop levels in Iraq, similar decisions will follow in the coming weeks and months.