Report: Top generals back Iraq surge

BAGHDAD, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Gen. George Casey, Gen. John Abizaid and other top commanders in Iraq now support a temporary increase in U.S. troops, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

The report was disputed in The Washington Post.

The proposed increase, which has become known as a surge, could be a key part of President Bush's new strategy, which he plans to unveil in January. The Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly oppose it.

The Times, citing a defense official, said Casey, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and Abizaid, head of Central Command, which is in charge of the Middle East, reversed their previous positions before Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Iraq this week.

But another Pentagon source told the Post that is not true.

"To say that Casey wants more forces, that isn't the case," the official said.

He said Casey argued to Gates that increasing U.S. troop levels could hold back efforts for a political settlement to end the violence.

The surge proposal was first put forward by retired Gen. Jack Keane and Frederick Kagan, a military historian at the American Enterprise Institute, who argued that it would allow U.S. forces to secure and hold mixed Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad. Critics say that insurgents and Shiite militias would simply wait out any temporary increase.