Thursday, Mar 31, 2005
A top US general on Wednesday said the Pentagon could begin large withdrawals of troops from Iraq as long as the level of violence in the country remained low until national elections, scheduled for the end of the year.
Lieutenant General Lance Smith of the US air force, deputy commander of Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the latest senior military commander to signal that the Pentagon is closer to a decision to bring troops home.
Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, has consistently argued that generals "on the ground in Iraq" will decide when they can reduce troop numbers.
"[If] the elections go OK, violence stays down, then we ought to be able to make some recommendations for us to be able to bring our forces home," Lt Gen Smith said at the Pentagon.
But the four-star general cautioned that any deterioration of security, or a sliding of the election timetable, could hamper troop reduction efforts. The US now has about 145,000 military personnel in Iraq. But that number is expected to fall to about 138,000 in coming weeks as soldiers whose departure was delayed because of elections in January begin to leave the country.
Last week General Richard Cody, the army vice-chief of staff, said the number of US forces in Iraq would probably decline by early 2006.
Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the joint chiefs, on Tuesday said top generals were expressing "cautious optimism" about the situation in Iraq.
"There are a lot of things right now that make you hopeful about the way ahead in Iraq," said Gen Pace. "But hope is not a plan."
While the rate of attacks on US troops has declined since the election, the US continues to suffer fatalities. The military has seen nearly 1,700 troop deaths and more than 12,000 casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
President George W. Bush has repeatedly insisted that US forces will remain in Iraq until its people are able to provide their own security. Lt Gen Smith said this could happen "in the not-too-distant future" if current trends continued.
The Pentagon says 145,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained a figure that some critics call an exaggeration. In a report released last week the Government Accountability Office, the oversight arm of Congress, concluded the US government agencies "do not report reliable data on the extent to which Iraqi security forces are trained and equipped".
In an interview with National Public Radio on Wednesday, Mr Rumsfeld responded to the GAO conclusions, saying: "We spend a lot of time on this and we know what we're talking about. What we present is accurate the number [of trained Iraqi security forces is] something over 140,000. That's just a fact."
Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and agencies
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