Rumsfeld Cites Iraqi Troops’ Progress as Key Reason for U.S. Military Drawdown

Iraqi military forces are enjoying newfound success blocking insurgents from entering the country from Syria, U.S. officials said Friday, a key improvement that led to the announcement of the first formal reduction in American troop levels.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced the modest drawdown of about 7,000 U.S. troops from brigades that were scheduled to deploy to the war-torn country but will now remain in the United States or be diverted to Kuwait.

The total number of U.S. forces in Iraq has hovered around 160,000 over the last month, reflecting a buildup for last week’s parliamentary elections. Rumsfeld’s announcement means that by early 2006, the number of American troops in Iraq will drop to about 130,000.

Even though the reduction is slight and will take place nearly three years after the U.S. invasion, it will enable President Bush to claim a measure of progress, perhaps relieving some domestic pressure for a drawdown while holding to Bush’s insistence that it be based on conditions on the ground.

It also will give American commanders an opportunity to argue that U.S. troops do not represent a permanent occupation force. However, analysts said it would take a steady pattern of reductions to convince Iraqis the Americans really intend to leave.

Military officials including Rumsfeld, who paid a surprise visit to Iraq this week, praised Iraqi forces for their work during the Dec. 15 parliamentary vote and said they have grown more adept at controlling the porous Syrian border.

“We feel very pleased by the progress of the Iraqi forces and the role they are playing providing security,” said Rumsfeld, flanked by Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. military official in Iraq.

U.S. officials for months have complained that Syria has not tried to control the border. But Casey said that U.S.-Iraqi operations along Iraq’s western border aimed at preventing potential suicide bombers from entering the country had paid off, and that Iraqis were exercising greater control over unruly towns and villages in the border area.

Although insurgent attacks killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad over the last two days and 14 Iraqis northeast of the capital on Friday, Casey said the number of suicide attacks had dropped from 60 in June to 26 in November. There have been 16 this month. He said that was evidence that border control efforts were succeeding.

“We had to credibly say they had control over that border before we could offer up some of our guys,” he said.

The decision not to deploy the two U.S. brigades also reflected political pressure in Washington, where Bush’s approval ratings have been battered for months.

In the last month, a concerted effort by the White House to explain its position, coupled with heavy turnout for the Iraqi elections, led to a partial rebound for Bush in national polls. Friday’s announcement offers an encouraging signal to military families just days before the Christmas holiday.

Military experts said it was a good time to indicate to Iraqis that U.S. forces would gradually leave, but also noted that the Iraqi reaction would probably be muted.

“There’s not going to be dancing in the streets,” said Gary Anderson, a retired U.S. Marine colonel who has advised the Defense Department on Iraqi security matters. While insurgents might seek to claim credit for driving U.S. forces out, most Iraqis are unlikely “to pay a lot of attention to this right now, until they see a slow, steady trend over the course of six months.”

Anderson said he believed the announcement was the first step in what was likely to be a gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces. More U.S. troops could be pulled out over the coming year from relatively secure regions in the north and south of the country, replaced by Iraqi forces.

“The Sunni Triangle, the harder areas of Baghdad and Al Anbar province are probably going to be the last to see this happen, and that’s at least a couple of years away,” Anderson said.

Under the plan outlined by Rumsfeld, portions of the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division would remain at Ft. Riley, Kan. In addition, the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, based in Baumholder, Germany, will remain in Kuwait as a backup force. The deployment of both brigades was halted this month. Friday’s announcement formalized the change of plans.

Casey has said in recent months that the presence of U.S. and other foreign troops could be fueling the insurgency and undermining the readiness of Iraqi forces.

“In this type of war, more is not necessarily better,” he said at a briefing after Rumsfeld spoke. “Less is better because it doesn’t feed the notion of occupation or the culture of dependency.”

“It doesn’t lengthen the time for the Iraqis to be self-reliant. And it doesn’t expose coalition forces to risk when there are Iraqi forces who are capable of standing up and doing it, and who want to do it,” Casey said.

The move was praised by Democrats, who have criticized the Bush administration for its handling of the war in Iraq and have pushed for a more rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“This long overdue announcement is good news for our courageous men and women serving in Iraq, for their families, and for the American people,” said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the House minority leader. “This reduction is a step in the right direction, which I hope will quickly be followed by others that will result in all U.S. combat forces being redeployed from Iraq next year.”

Bush has said that setting troop withdrawal timetables would encourage insurgents to wait out the U.S. presence.

Insurgent attacks have remained steady at about 100 a day, U.S. officials said. But Casey said such tallies weren’t “necessarily the best way to measure the capabilities of the insurgency.”

Losers in the Dec. 15 balloting, including Sunni Arabs and nationalists, took to the streets of several cities Friday alleging vote fraud and demanding a restaging of the elections. Insurgents attacked a checkpoint along the highway between Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk, killing 10 people and wounding at least 20.

A suicide bomber killed four people and wounded eight in an explosion at the entrance to a Shiite mosque near the town of Balad Ruz, northeast of the capital.

In the nearby provincial capital, Baqubah, authorities discovered the bodies of three unidentified men in a field. The victims, who were blindfolded, bore gunshot wounds and signs of torture.

Homemade bombs in Samarra have killed five people and injured several over the last two days. An Interior Ministry official was wounded in an assassination attempt in Baghdad.

The four American soldiers were killed in separate roadside bomb attacks in the capital. At least 2,160 U.S. military personnel have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, 50 this month.

Daragahi reported from Baghdad and Miller from Washington. Special correspondents in Baqubah and Samarra contributed to this report.