US troops may start withdrawing from Iraq in March, a US general said, as the new US ambassador to the war-torn country pledged to help Iraqis crush a ruthless insurgency.
As many as four or five brigades (up to 20,000 people) could leave if the country's ethnic groups agree on a constitution and elect a government that has broad support, Lieutenant General John Vines said in Washington via video link from Iraq.
"I suspect we will probably draw down capability after the election, because Iraqi security forces are more capable," Vines said. He referred to planned elections at the end of this year that would follow hoped-for approval of a new constitution in October.
The number-two US commander in Iraq forecast that the insurgency would dwindle rapidly if the political process succeeded, but said any drawdown would depend on conditions on the ground.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Baghdad would not be surprised and would understand if the United States began to start withdrawing troops next year.
"I would not be surprised ... If there would be some withdrawal, let's say early 2006, I think it would be understandable," he said in Brussels.
"The more our forces assume responsibility, the less role the multinational force will have in Iraq," he said.
In Baghdad, the new US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad vowed to work with Iraqis to crush the tenacious insurgents.
"I will work with Iraqis to break the back of the insurgency," Khalilzad said after presenting his credentials to President Jalal Talabani in the heavily fortified Green Zone where most American and Iraqi officials live.
"Foreign terrorists and hardline Baathists want Iraq to be in a civil war," he told reporters, referring to members of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's Baath party.
Insurgents believed to be led by Sunni Arabs and Jordanian-born extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi kill dozens of Iraqis almost daily, targeting members of the country's security forces in particular.
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