Perspective: In Baghdad, Pressing to Meet Pentagon’s Own Standard for Force Levels

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 — When Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus assumes his duties as the new American commander in Iraq, he will be guided by a new military doctrine on counterinsurgency that makes the security of the population a chief objective.

But a pressing question that is likely to emerge when the Senate takes up his confirmation next week is whether the administration’s new Iraq strategy will draw on enough forces to ensure security — as measured against the general’s own guidelines.

The additional five combat brigades that would be sent to Baghdad under President Bush’s strategy would roughly double the size of the American force involved in the security operation there, about 15,000 troops. But as a whole, that would still represent only a small portion of the 120,000-strong force that would be required to secure the entire capital according to the force ratios outlined in the military’s new field manual for counterinsurgency, which General Petraeus helped to draft.

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