The United States could withdraw enough troops from Iraq by next summer to reverse this year's buildup ordered by President George W Bush, the top US commander in Iraq said Monday, according to DPA. In a highly anticipated report to Congress, General David Petraeus cited improved security in Iraq in proposing that the troop surge, aimed at quelling sectarian violence, could end by mid-July 2008. "The military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met," Petraeus told a hearing in the US House of Representatives, but he warned that a premature pullout would be "devastating." Bush's expansion of US forces in Iraq, announced in January, boosted troop strength from about 130,000 to more than 160,000.
