Andy S

US Military Deployment

     The U.S. is currently deploying troops in Iraq and Afghanistan but tin the last fiew month the pentagon decided to cancel a last minute decision on deploying 3,500 troops.The military is trying to drawdown the number of troops in Iraq. The 1st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division will not replace a North Carolina National Guard unit already in Iraq, Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh told CNN. The 3,500-troop combat team, based in Fort Drum, New York, was to leave in January.The National Guard unit is still on schedule to return home, which will speed up the drawdown of forces.The troop withdrawal in Iraq coincides with a debate in the Obama administration on whether to send as many as 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. 

Current news

• As of Friday, 250 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the start of the year, according to a CNN tally based on Pentagon numbers. 
• Four soldiers were killed and 10 people, including civilians and security forces, were wounded when a bomb targeting an Iraqi army checkpoint exploded in Falluja, an Anbar province town. 
• In Anbar a suicide truck bomb hit a police checkpoint on a bridge west of Ramadi, wounding a police officer. The blast damaged the bridge, which carries a highway linking Iraq with Jordan and Syria. Traffic had to be rerouted to an another road. 
• President Obama has said the combat mission in Iraq will cease for U.S. troops at the end of 2010, and all American forces will be withdrawn by the end of 2011. There are 112,000 U.S. troops there now.