BAGHDAD, 28 July 2005 — The United States hopes to sharply reduce its forces in Iraq by the middle of next year if all goes according to plan, its top commander on the ground said yesterday.
At a briefing with visiting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, General George Casey said he expected troop cuts after a referendum on a new constitution due in October and an election for a new leader in December.
“I do believe that if the political process continues to go positively, if the developments with the (Iraqi) security forces continue to go as it is going, I do believe we will still be able to make fairly substantial reductions after these elections — in the spring and summer of next year,” he said.
It appeared to be the first time since the insurgency worsened in April that top Pentagon officials have suggested a timeline for withdrawal.
Casey’s remarks came as a new poll showed most Americans think the United States will lose the war in Iraq.
A British government memo leaked this month said Washington had a plan to cut the foreign presence in Iraq from more than 170,000 troops to just 66,000 by mid 2006. London confirmed the memo was genuine but said it reflected only one possible plan.
During a joint news conference with Rumsfeld, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari repeated Iraqi assertions that the Americans should start to leave as soon as Iraqis are ready. But he said no one wanted to see a surprise pullout.
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll published in USA Today said 32 percent of respondents believed the United States could not win the war in Iraq. Another 21 percent said it was possible the United States could win but they did not believe it would.
Just 43 percent said they were confident of victory.
The poll was the first to report a majority of Americans — 51 percent — believed the government deliberately misled the public about the presence of banned weapons in Iraq. Still, most believed it was right to go to war to topple Saddam Hussein.
Rumsfeld, making his tenth trip to Iraq since the war began, urged Iraqis to finish drafting their constitution by an Aug. 15 deadline. “We don’t want any delays,” Rumsfeld told reporters. “Now’s the time to get on with it.” The committee drafting the constitution resumed work on Tuesday after Sunni Arabs — the 20 percent minority community — ended a six-day boycott that began when one of their committee members was gunned down last week.
Rumsfeld said he would also discuss turning over control of the estimated 15,000 detainees in the country to Iraqis, and planned to press Iraqis to work on the legal status of US forces after a constitutional government is in place.
He said it was vital that the Iraqi government allocate sufficient funds for Iraqi security forces so that they can replace departing coalition troops.
A senior Iraqi security official said he believed US-led forces would hand over security in 10 major cities to Iraqi forces by December.
“From now until the (Dec. 15) elections we hope to have transferred 10 major cities,” Muwaffaq Rubaie, the chairman of a new transition task force, told AFP.
A joint US-Iraqi force transition committee is to report to Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari on plans to transfer security from coalition troops to Iraqi forces within 60 days, with a final report expected a month later, Rubaie said.
