Troops to be reduced next year?

The U.S. and its allies may be able to remove some troops from Iraq next year, though the country remains at risk of fragmenting along sectarian and ethnic lines, the top American commander said.

``I do still believe that we can make coalition reductions in '06,'' General George Casey said today on CNN's ``Late Edition'' program. Withdrawals will take place as Iraqi security forces increasingly assert themselves, he said, a process that is ``very much on track'' even though only one Iraqi battalion is capable of operating on its own.

Casey agreed that continuing disagreements among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds raise the prospect of a splintered, rather than a united, Iraq.

``Certainly, there is potential'' for that, he said. ``But what I see all the time is that there is an Iraqi identity, that the people of Iraq think of themselves as Iraqis. And people are not interested, necessarily, in seeing the fragmentation of the country. And I don't see that happening.''