More Marines will go to Iraq in 2004

Several thousand additional Marines will go to Iraq next year, the Pentagon said Wednesday in an update that indicated the total U.S. force won’t be reduced as much as planned.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also approved the mobilization of 9,900 Army, 1,290 Navy and 3,208 Air Force reserve personnel for the rotation, which will begin in January to replace the 130,000 troops who will be completing one-year tours of duty in Iraq.

Rumsfeld also put on alert 4,228 Army, 1,290 Navy and 2,381 Air Force reservists, to let them know they may be mobilized for duty in Iraq.

The Pentagon had announced most of the details of its rotation plan, which called for relying more heavily on the National Guard and Reserve, while reducing the total number of American troops to about 105,000 by the time the rotation was completed in May.

Although no numbers were provided by the Pentagon, it appears the total number by May will be closer to 110,000, counting the additional Marines.

For reasons not explained in the announcement Wednesday, the Pentagon said it had decided to send an additional three battalions of Marines. Those would be beyond the 20,000 who were designated on Nov. 6.

In Iraq, the U.S. military on Wednesday arrested a wife and a daughter of a top Saddam Hussein deputy suspected of leading the anti-American insurgency.

The detention of the relatives of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a lifelong Hussein associate who is No. 6 on the list of most-wanted Iraqis, was an apparent attempt to pressure his surrender or gather intelligence that might lead to him. U.S. officials last week offered a $10 million reward for information leading to al-Douri’s capture.

In Iraq’s holy city of Najaf, two top Shiite Muslim leaders said they want elections sooner than a plan agreed to be the coalition and the coalition-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, which calls for the creation of an interim administration by next July and elections in March 2005.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani feels that “real loopholes” in the plan “must be dealt with, otherwise the process will be deficient and will not meet the expectations of the people of Iraq,” said Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite member of the Governing Council, after talks with al-Sistani.

The ayatollah wields considerable influence among Shiites, who make up more than 60 percent of Iraq’s 25 million people.

Also Wednesday, the popular Arab news stations Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya denied U.S. accusations that they have cooperated with Iraqi militants in taping attacks on coalition troops.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the head of the joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, said Tuesday they had evidence the two networks were invited by insurgents to witness and videotape attacks on American troops.