WASHINGTON, Sept 19: US military planners are considering extended tours of duty for some units in Iraq in the event more US troops are needed during upcoming elections there, a Pentagon spokesman said on Monday.

Lawrence DiRita, the Defence Deparmtent’s chief spokesman, said it was ‘entirely possible’ that commanders will want to boost the size of the force from its current level of 140,000.

“And I guess the thinking at the moment is if we did need more and it was based on rotations, how would that work?” he said. “And what would the impact be on units that might wind up getting extended a week or two beyond their one year.”

DiRita denied, however, that the reassessment of force levels was prompted by a surge in suicide bombings that have killed more than 200 civilians in Iraq over the past week.—AFP