How Many U.S. Troops Are Fighting The Islamic State?

Nancy A. Youssef & Shane Harris, Daily Beast: Pentagon Won’t Say How Many Troops Are Fighting ISIS

Officially, there are now 3,650 U.S. troops fighting ISIS in Iraq. The real number of Americans involved in the war is closer to 6,000.

In the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, there are two ways to count the number of U.S. boots on the ground. There’s the one that officials admit to. Then there’s the ground truth.
Officially, there are now 3,650 U.S. troops in Iraq, there primarily to help train the Iraqi national army.

But in reality, there are already about 4,450 U.S. troops in Iraq, plus another nearly 7,000 contractors supporting the American government’s operations. That includes almost 1,100 U.S. citizens working as military contractors, according to the latest Defense Department statistics.

In other words, the total number of forces that Pentagon and Obama administration officials frequently cite in public are wrong. They’re short thousands of contractors—and about 800 troops. These forces are often assigned to specialized units or tasked with supporting troops on the front line.

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Update: 6,500 Coalition Troops in Iraq; US Wants More (VOA)

WNU Editor: If you add the U.S. Navy, US bases in Turkey, Kuwait, etc. .... the U.S. numbers involved in the war against the Islamic State are appreciably higher. But while the Pentagon is reluctant to tell us how many soldiers are involved in the war against the Islamic State .... they are making it very clear that they need more .... More U.S. troops in Iraq may be needed for conventional warfare ops targeting ISIS (Military Times).