WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he expects deeper reductions in US troop levels in Iraq this year if conditions improve, and the top US military officer warned that more troops were needed in Afghanistan.
Gates' optimistic view contrasted sharply with those of his commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who won President George W. Bush's backing for an open-ended halt to a drawdown of US troops in Iraq after July.
In embracing Petraeus' recommendations earlier Thursday, Bush said the general "will have all the time he needs" to make further reductions in US forces.
But Gates, choosing words that Petraeus had explicitly rejected in Senate testimony earlier this week, told the Senate Armed Services Committee there would be a "brief pause" for consolidation and evaluation after July.
"I do not anticipate this period of review to be an extended one, and I would emphasize that the hope, depending on conditions on the ground, is to reduce our presence further this fall," Gates said.
He said Petraeus should make a recommendation on further troop cuts at the end of a 45-day review period in mid-September. The general indicated this week that he might, or might not, do that, depending on the circumstances.
At the same time, Gates said he does not expect troop levels to fall as low as 100,000 by the end of the year, as he once hoped.
His testimony and that of Admiral William Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reflect underlying tensions within the military and the administration over the pace and scope of the drawdown at a time when Afghanistan poses a growing challenge.
While Gates and Mullen take a global view of US military requirements, Petraeus has focused on keeping force levels in Iraq high enough to preserve security gains made, an objective that Bush also has emphasized.
The withdrawal of five surge brigades will reduce the size of the US force in Iraq from 160,000 troops today to about 140,000 -- more than before the surge began in early 2007.
Three of the additional five combat brigades have already departed, Gates said.
Whereas Petraeus refused to say troops levels would go down further if conditions improved, Gates made it clear he expects Petraeus to give up troops if recent trends continue.
"If the conditions continue to improve in Iraq, as we have seen them improve for the last 14 or 15 months, then we believe the circumstances are in place for him (Petraeus) to be able to recommend continuing drawdowns," Gates said.
"But while I think we have used different words, that is my understanding and my expectation," he said.
Mullen emphasized that while Iraq is the US military's most pressing priority, it is not the only one.
"I need the rest of our military focused on the rest of our challenges, which are, in this dangerous world, many and formidable," he said.
Mullen said he was "deeply concerned" about Afghanistan, where the United States recently deployed 3,500 additional marines to help fill growing gaps in command requirements.
"The Taliban is growing bolder, suicide attacks are on the rise, and so is the trade in illegal narcotics," Mullen said.
"In this economy of force operation, we do what we can. But doing what we can in Afghanistan is not doing all that we should," he said.
At Gates' urging, Bush last week pledged to NATO leaders meeting in Bucharest that the United States will significantly increase US forces in Afghanistan in 2009.
The commander of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, General Dan McNeill, has said he needs three more brigades, or about 10,000 troops, to deal with the Taliban challenge, but NATO has so far come up with only a fraction of that.
"We're not going to be able to fill that until we've got forces that are released from other obligations, principally in Iraq at the brigade size," Mullen said.
Gates said, "We were very careful in Bucharest that the president not make a specific commitment or a specific period of time when additional US forces might be available."
But he said he urged Bush to make the commitment "out of confidence that American troops levels in Iraq will be lower in the course of 2009."
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