To all the people who whined about Silvio Berlusconi announcing Italy will pull troops out of Iraq starting in September, I wonder if they will now bash the US, as I questioned in my entry on the Italy pullout. The Italian September pullout was clarified by Berlusconi as only "a hope" of when they would start reducing troops and not a definite time.

With the election and things moving forward there, reduction is possible.

Yahoo/AFP

The US Army expects to reduce the size of its force in Iraq later this year and next because of gains from successful elections and a campaign against Iraqi insurgents, the Army's number two officer said.

General Richard Cody, the army's vice chief of staff, put no numbers on the scope of the anticipated reduction, telling reporters that the planning for the next rotation of forces would not be complete until April.

But his comments reflected optimism about the military's plan to gradually turn over responsibility for security to Iraqi forces while shifting the role of US forces from combat to training and assisting Iraqi units.

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