WASHINGTON, May 6 (RIA Novosti) - The Pentagon is to bring home 3,500 servicemen from Iraq as part of an overall troop reduction plan following last year's surge in the number of U.S. soldiers deployed in the war-torn country, a military spokesman said on Tuesday.
Soldiers from the 3rd Heavy Brigade will return to their home base in Fort Benning, Georgia.
At present, the U.S. contingent in Iraq numbers 159,000 servicemen. Two more brigades will be withdrawn by the summer, cutting the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to 140,000.
Over 4,000 American soldiers, and up to 90,000 Iraqi civilians (according to the Iraq Body Count project) have been killed in Iraq since the invasion of the country by U.S.-led forces in 2003.
