Pressure grows as Pentagon misses deadline on troop levels

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration yesterday came under more pressure to outline the number of American forces that may need to stay in Iraq over the next two years after the Pentagon failed to meet a 60-day deadline set by Congress to provide a detailed plan for training Iraqis and for likely US troop levels.

The report to Congress, due yesterday, was required under the $80 billion war spending legislation approved in May. It is intended to help answer one of the most pressing questions hanging over the American-led occupation: when the United States might be able to begin drawing down the estimated 140,000 forces in Iraq.

The White House and Pentagon are facing rising calls from Democrats and Republicans for a more detailed strategy in Iraq -- calls that grew louder yesterday.

''I am deeply disappointed that the administration failed to comply with this initial . . . deadline," Representative Martin T. Meehan, a Lowell Democrat and senior member of the Armed Services Committee, told Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld in a letter. ''It is long past due for the administration to provide Congress with meaningful information to evaluate our progress in Iraq."

The Pentagon yesterday maintained that it is still compiling the report, but did not say when it would be complete.

The war spending legislation, approved by both houses of Congress, stipulated that ''the administration must develop and provide to the Congress a more comprehensive set of performance indicators and measures of stability and security in Iraq than is currently available."

It calls for ''detailed descriptions" of how the Pentagon will measure the security environment, political stability, and economic progress and how it will assess the capabilities and readiness of Iraqi security forces, including military and police, to take over the mission now performed by US-led forces. The report must also include ''an assessment of US military requirements, including planned force rotations, through the end of calendar year 2006," according to the instructions from Congress. The Pentagon is providing updates to Congress every three months until Oct. 1, 2006.

The Army, meanwhile, also delayed the scheduled release of a study about the impact of the extended deployment, which officials said raises new questions about its ability to respond to other trouble spots around the world. Top generals needed more time to review the RAND Corporation findings before making them public. ''There is nothing to hide," said a senior Army officer who asked not to be named. ''We wanted a chance to absorb it."

Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.