Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States has finally reported the size of its military
presence in Kuwait.

The Defense Department said it was deploying 23,000 American troops in
Kuwait. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said those troops would be on alert
for any emergency in the region.

“We have about 40,000 troops in that region, about 23,000 in Kuwait,
along with a large number of troops in other countries as well, along with
the fact that we have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan,” Panetta said.

In remarks on Oct. 23, Panetta provided the first official account of
the U.S. military presence in Kuwait. Estimates of the U.S. military
presence in Kuwait, employed as a logistical base for operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq, ranged from 15,000 to as many as 70,000. Most of the
troops were said to consist of members of the U.S. Third Army.

Panetta said the U.S. military presence in Kuwait would mark a
significant footprint in the region. He said the U.S. forces in the Gulf
Cooperation Council sheikdom would be available to respond to any attack
from neighboring Iran.

“So we will always have a force that will be present and that will deal
with any threats from Iran,” Panetta, in a briefing at a conference in
Indonesia, said.

On Oct. 24, Panetta repeated figures of the U.S. military presence in
Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait. The defense secretary told an audience of U.S.
and Japanese troops that the American deployment should serve as a warning
to any Iranian attack.

“At the same time, for Iran and anybody else who has any other ideas,
let me make clear that the United States maintains 40,000 troops in that
region,
23,000 in Kuwait, and numbers of others in countries throughout that
region,” Panetta said. “Let me make clear to them and to anybody else that
America will maintain a presence in that part of the world.”

Officials said the U.S. military has drafted plans to maintain combat
forces in Kuwait to respond to any emergency in Iraq. They said U.S. combat
presence in Kuwait would allow Washington to reduce its proposed military
presence in Iraq in 2012 to as little as 5,000.

But the administration of President Barack Obama was said to have
scrapped plans for an extension of the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
Officials said
Iraq might consider a U.S. military training contingent only after
the completion of a troop withdrawal by the end of the year. In the interim,
Washington plans to maintain 150 troops to protect the U.S. embassy in
Baghdad.

“The president said very clearly that what we’re looking for is a more
normal military-to-military relationship,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby
said on Oct. 24. “That’s the crux of what we’re discussing right now.”

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