When George Bush proposed his idea for escalating American troop presence in the occupation of Iraq, various numbers were tossed about in terms of how many soldiers would be needed to implement the plan. Everyone seemed to settle on “between 20 and 30 thousand”. Even as the GAO said that there would need to be many thousands of support troops to complement the additional combat troops being sent, no one paid much attention.

Today, Hearst Newspapers is reporting that a quiet “second surge” is underway that will eventually result in over 200,000 troops being deployed in Iraq at any given time:

The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year, an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders showed Monday.

When additional support troops are included in this second troop “surge,” the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq could increase from 162,000 now to more than 200,000 — a record high number — by the end of the year…

The article also quotes Gen. William Nash as saying:

“It doesn’t surprise me that they’re not talking about it. I think they would be very happy not to have any more attention paid to this.”

And as for an excuse why the daily average of U.S. troop deaths in Iraq continues to climb, it will be easier than ever to say: “Well, we have more people over there. So, of course the casualty rate is going to rise.” The legacy media will accept this explanation, and just move onto the next Paris Hilton story.

It’s all so very predictable.