Defense chief: Iraq drawdown could begin this year
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that the United States could start withdrawing troops from Iraq later this year -- "if circumstances on the ground permit."
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The United States may be able to reduce its troop levels in Iraq after this country's January elections if security improves and local forces continue to expand and become more effective, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says.
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Defence Secretary Robert Gates hints that the US could withdraw thousands of troops from Iraq during 2008.
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U.S. troops could start leaving Iraq by the end of this year if the plan to suppress sectarian violence in Baghdad is successful, the defense secretary said.
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The top U.S. commander in Iraq on Monday said the number of U.S. troops in Iraq could be cut by next summer to roughly 130,000, its level before this year's "surge" of 30,000 forces, without jeopardizing security improvements.
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A top Democrat said Thursday he is preparing legislation that would give President Bush the war funding he wants this year, but on the condition that troops leave Iraq by the end of the year.
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The U.S. military commander in Iraq has suggested he will recommend a cut in U.S. troop numbers around March when he delivers long-awaited testimony to Congress next week.
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Administration officials say the Iraqi elections at the end of the month will be less than perfect, but nonetheless will pave the way for a drawdown of U.S. troops.
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Iraq's military is drawing up plans to cope with any quick U.S. military pullout as a senior American official warned that the Bush administration may reconsider its support if Iraqi leaders don't make major reforms by fall
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Two senior defense officials told a House committee today that Iraq's growing security forces should be able to take full responsibility for internal security sometime between early 2009 and 2012, but they declined to predict when U.S. military personnel could withdraw from the country.
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The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, said on Monday that America was meeting its military objectives in Iraq and troop levels could be reduced by next summer.
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Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that he expected American troops to withdraw from Iraq within four years, but he cautioned that any final decision hinged on
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Defense officials are not ruling out the possibility that they will need more U.S. troops to secure January's elections in increasingly violent Iraq, but believe Iraqi and perhaps international troops may be able to do the job instead, a top general said Wednesday.
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BAGHDAD, Jan. 30 -- Senior U.S. military commanders here say they want to freeze troop reductions starting this summer for at least a month, making it more likely that the next administration will inherit as many troops in Iraq as there were before President Bush announced a "surge" of forces a year...
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The U.S. military's top general said Monday that the Joint Chiefs of Staff is weighing a range of possible new directions in Iraq, including, if President Bush deems it necessary, an even bigger troop buildup.
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The next three to four months will be vital to determine if violence in Iraq can be cut further and security maintained with fewer American troops, the number two U.S. military commander in Iraq said on Tuesday.
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Defense secretary endorses the idea of pausing the drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq this summer.