US denies considering adding 14,000 troops to Middle East

Washington, Dec 5 (IANS) The US Department of Defense has rejected a report alleging that Washington was considering adding 14,000 troops to the Middle East to confront Iran."The reporting is wrong. The US is not considering sending 14,000 additional troops to the Middle East," Xinhua news agency reported citing Pentagon spokeswoman Alyssa Farah as saying in a tweet on Wednesday.The tweet was in response to a Wall Street Journal report earlier on Wednesday that cited multiple American officials as saying that President Donald Trump's administration "is considering a significant expansion of the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East to counter Iran".The report said Trump could make a decision on the new deployment as soon as this month.The Wall Street Journal updated the story after Farah's response, but kept its reporting.Josh Hawley, a US senator who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, questioned the alleged expansion."Is the Pentagon preparing for a land war?" Hawley said on Twitter.
--IANS ksk/