Defense Department officials have yet to clarify plans to deploy additional troops to the Middle East after denying a report in The Wall Street Journal that said the Pentagon is considering sending up to 14,000 troops.
“The Secretary of Defense is consistently, and continues to evaluate, with the advice of others, what the appropriate number of forces to be deployed to the Middle East is,” Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, according to Politico.
He did not specify what size a force the Pentagon is thinking of sending, but did say that the U.S. has sent an initial 14,000 since the spring, half by ship and half made up of ground and air units in Saudi Arabia, to deter Iranian attacks in the Middle East, but the Pentagon is considering a further increase due to intelligence that suggests more Iranian attacks in that area.
“We’re concerned about the threat stream that we’re seeing and I would note we’re going to come to brief the committee in closed session in a week on that very topic,” he said. “It is possible that we would need to adjust our force posture, and I think that would be a prudent step based on what we observe.”
A Pentagon spokeswoman tweeted Wednesday night that the article was wrong, specifically saying, “The U.S. is not considering sending 14,000 additional troops to the Middle East.”
When asked about this, Rood did not clarify whether the number was wrong or if the Pentagon was not seriously considering the deployment.
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