US News
U.S. to reduce troop levels in Iraq after December elections
By DPA
Nov 20, 2005, 19:00 GMT

Washington - The White House plans to reduce the number of U.S. troops stationed in Iraq from 160,000 to around 138,000 following December 15 Iraqi elections, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday.

Rumsfeld told ABC News' This Week talk show that the troops to be pulled out of Iraq were reinforcements that had originally been sent in to boost security during the referendum on the Iraqi constitution and during the December parliamentary polls.

He declined to commit to a timetable for full Iraqi withdrawal but confirmed indirectly that the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, had already drawn up a number of withdrawal scenarios.

These plans, Rumsfeld said, were dependent on the fulfilment of a series of conditions, key among them being the ability of the Iraqi police and army to maintain security in the country.

Also Sunday, Democratic congressman John Murtha reiterated his call for a complete and immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Murtha, a Vietnam veteran and the ranking Democrat on the lower House of Representatives committee that oversees the military budget, had on Thursday ignited a storm of debate when he became the first U.S. congressman to openly call for withdrawal from Iraq.

On Sunday Murtha told U.S. news network NBC that he regarded his 2002 vote for the Iraq war as a mistake. 'Terror and instability have grown around us in the Middle East,' Murtha said, adding that he believed that senior U.S. military figures no longer saw a military victory in Iraq as possible.