Gates: US might speed up troop withdrawal from Iraq

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT – The United States is considering speeding up its withdrawal from Iraq because of the sustained drop in violence there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday following discussions with his top commanders in the war.

“I think there’s at least some chance of a modest acceleration,” this year, Gates said.
It was the first suggestion that the Obama administration might rethink its difficult choice to leave a heavy fighting force in Iraq long past the election of an American president who opposed the war.

Gates said the consideration came because the situation is “better than expected.”
Perhaps one of the current 14 combat units could come home early, Gates said.
That would mean a cut of roughly 5,000 people.

Continued bad blood between Iraq’s Arab-led central government and the self-ruled Kurdish region in the north represents the major wild card to a faster pullout, Gates spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

Concern is growing that North-South tensions over land and resources could become a shooting war once U.S. forces leave. Gates spent much of his two-day visit in Iraq warning both sides that U.S. forces will not be around to keep the peace forever, and he offered U.S. help to mediate.

“These are some fundamental issues, and I think it’s important that both the government in Baghdad and the Kurds have pursued them through political means” so far, Gates told reporters after meeting Kurdish President Massoud Barzani in Irbil, capital of the Kurdish self-rule area.

Gates said he told his hosts that all sides had spent “too much in blood and treasure” since the 2003 U.S. invasion to risk losing it now.

The United States has about 130,000 forces in Iraq, with current plans calling for most combat forces – or more than 100,000 troops – to remain in the country until after Iraqi national elections in January.