Several Hundred Thousand

Holy massive occupation, Batman!

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 — The Army's chief of staff said today that several hundred thousand American troops could be required to provide security and public services in Iraq after a war to oust Saddam Hussein and disarm his military.

The magnitude of the postwar troop commitment described by the Army's top officer, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, is much larger than what other American officials have outlined. Pentagon officials have said that about 100,000 American troops may be needed in the post-Saddam phase, along with tens of thousands of additional allied forces.

"Something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required," General Shinseki told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee today. "We're talking about post-hostilities control over a piece of geography that's fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems."