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New York TimesPresident Bush has accepted the recommendation of his senior civilian and military advisers to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq by 8,000 in the early months of next year. The reduction will begin with a Marine Corps battalion set to leave this fall from Anbar Province, once the center of the antigovernment insurgency.
In an address on Tuesday to the National Defense University here, Mr. Bush will unveil his decision on future force levels in Iraq, which includes withdrawing a full brigade of combat troops in the first few weeks of 2009, according to a draft of the speech released late Monday by the White House.
Neither the Marine battalion nor the Army brigade will be replaced, leaving the American combat force in Iraq at 14 brigades. After other support and logistics units are withdrawn under the new orders, the American troop levels in Iraq would drop to about 138,000 by March, still several thousand more than were there in January 2007, when Mr. Bush announced the “surge” that brought the total over 160,000.
“Here is the bottom line: While the enemy in Iraq is still dangerous, we have seized the offensive, and Iraqi forces are becoming increasingly capable of leading and winning the fight,” Mr. Bush says in the speech. “As a result, we have been able to carry out a policy of ‘return on success’ — reducing American combat forces in Iraq as conditions on the ground continue to improve.”...
Mr. Bush will also announce a decision to increase American force levels in Afghanistan by about 4,500 troops, according to the draft of the speech....
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/world/middleeast/09prexy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin