The top U.S. military commander in Iraq yesterday predicted a gradual drop in American troops deployed there through next year, while Iraq's new national security adviser said all multinational forces could be out of his country by 2008.
Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak Rubaie went further, giving both a number and a prediction of how soon most U.S. troops will have left his country.
Those U.S.-led forces yesterday said they had finished doing an autopsy on the body of slain terror leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, killed in a targeted U.S. air strike Wednesday, but U.S. officials declined to release the results immediately.
Gen. Casey said he had not seen the report. He and other officials also said they expect Zarqawi's terror group, al Qaeda in Iraq, to step up the bloodshed as threatened.
Gen. Casey was quick to reiterate President Bush's insistence that U.S. troops will leave Iraq when commanders there say the time is right, not on a predetermined deadline determined by politics.
Gen. Casey declined to share what advice regarding troops he will give Mr. Bush during two days of meetings on the war on terror that the president called for today and tomorrow.
Gen. Casey told CBS that a drawdown of U.S. forces actually began last year with the redeployment of troops brought in to provide additional security for December's Iraqi elections.
Mr. Rubaie also echoed the longstanding comments of Mr. Bush, who has said that as more Iraqi troops step up, U.S. troops will begin to stand down.
Although the comments by Gen. Casey and Mr. Rubaie were more optimistic than other recent assessments of progress in Iraq, some Democrats in Congress have called for a more rapid or immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Rep. Jane Harman of California, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, yesterday joined such calls to pull out troops.
Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, was among the first lawmakers to call for immediate redeployment of U.S. troops to areas outside Iraq. Mr. Murtha, a Marine veteran, reportedly is interested in a leadership post if his party wins control of the House in November.