The Pentagon says about 25,000 U.S. soldiers will be deployed to Iraq beginning in the fall, replacing troops scheduled to come home by the end of the year.

The deployments announced Monday would maintain a level of 15 brigades in Iraq, or roughly 140,000 troops, the number that military leaders expect will remain on the warfront at the end of July, once the currently planned withdrawals are finished.

Under the new Pentagon policy effective in August, those Army units will serve for 12 months, rather than the 15-month tours that units in Iraq now are serving. The bulk of the soldiers deploying later this year returned from Iraq late last year, and will have gotten about 12 months at home to rest and retrain.