Pentagon Cancels Plans To Send 4,000 Troops To Iraq

October 18, 2009 8:31 a.m. EST

Washington, DC (AHN) - The Pentagon has decided not to send about 4,000 troops to Iraq to replace a unit scheduled to leave the country in January.

The Defense Department announced that it would not be sending the 3,500-member brigade from Fort Drum, New York because the security situation continues to improve, despite some recently-reported violence.

The brigade was from the 10th Mountain Division, which was going to replace a unit from the North Carolina National Guard. The Guard unit is still coming home in January, Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh told CNN.

Almost 120,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, while the Obama administration mulls sending more soldiers to Afghanistan, where clashes with the Taliban and other insurgents killed 250 U.S. service members since the start of this year.

All combat troops are scheduled to leave Iraq by August 2010. Advisors and training personnel are set to leave in 2011, as part of a security pact signed between the United States and Iraq last November.