US:Hopes of an early withdrawal of some American forces from Iraq received a blow yesterday when the top US commander in the country indicated that he will tell Congress next week that a modest reduction in forces could start next spring.
Some US papers reported yesterday that Gen David Petraeus was planning to call for the withdrawal of some troops in January, but the general told the Boston Globe that he envisaged the current troop surge continuing into the spring.
"Based on the progress our forces are achieving, I expect to be able to recommend that some of our forces will be redeployed without replacement. That will, over time, reduce the total number of troops in Iraq. The process will take time, but we want to be sure to maintain the security gains that coalition and Iraqi forces have worked so hard to achieve," he said.
The five additional brigades, numbering 3,500-4,500 troops each, deployed to Iraq as part of the troop surge, will end their tours between March and July next year.
"I do not envision that the US would need to send more troops. In fact, we are in the process of doing the 'battlefield geometry' to determine the way ahead as the surge of forces inevitably runs its course," he said.
President George Bush has asked Democrats and restive Republicans in Congress to wait until Gen Petraeus and US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker deliver their progress report next week, before passing judgment on his decision to increase troop numbers.
Mr Bush suggested this week that that modest troop cuts may be possible if military successes continue, but he gave no timeline or specific numbers.
Gen Petraeus is expected to tell Congress that sectarian violence has fallen dramatically, especially in Anbar province, which Mr Bush visited this week. The administration's presentation of Anbar as a glittering success story was undermined yesterday when the Pentagon reported that four US marines were killed in the province on Thursday. Three soldiers in the northern province of Nineveh were also killed on Thursday.
The head of the Government Accountability Office, a congressional auditing body, this week cast doubt on the reliability of military statistics showing a dramatic fall in sectarian killings.
Comptroller Gen David Walker predicted that Gen Petraeus would claim next week that sectarian killings were sharply down. "I think you need to ask him how he defines sectarian violence," Mr Walker said.
The Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, chaired by retired Marine Corps Gen James Jones, this week described limited success in developing an Iraqi army and significantly fewer gains at building reliable police forces.
The report said the US military should reduce its presence and increasingly shift internal security work to Iraqis. "Gen Jones's report today, like all other objective assessments before it, unfortunately tells us more of the same: that the president's strategy brings us no closer to the necessary political reconciliation and it is past time to change course in Iraq," said Senate Majority leader Harry Reid.