Petraeus: U.S. troops could leave Baghdad soon

As U.S.-led troops pressed toward Baghdad in 2003, Saddam remained defiant in a walkabout among cheering crowds in the capital

The military commander of U.S. troops in Iraq says American soldiers could leave the city of Baghdad by next summer because of the declining level of violence.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Gen. David Petraeus agreed that a target of getting U.S. troops out of the Iraqi city by July is possible, "conditions permitting."

"The number of attacks in Baghdad lately has been, gosh, I think it's probably less than five [a day] on average, and that's a city of seven million people," he said.

U.S. combat forces already have pulled back from cities in 13 of Iraq's 18 provinces, the general told the Financial Times, which reported the U.S. and Iraq now are hammering out an agreement that reportedly calls for U.S. combat troops to leave Iraqi cities by the middle of 2009 and leave Iraq 24 months later.

That's a marked change from the high levels of violence that rocked Baghdad in 2006.

Petraeus, who is to leave Iraq within a few weeks to take over new duties as chief of Central Command directing all U.S. operations in parts of Africa, the Middle East and some of Asia, will give President Bush a final recommendation before he departs. But he declined to talk with the Times about what he will suggest.

"You have to look at various contingencies and make assumptions, and in some cases if you have an uncertainty, then needless to say you hedge your bets a bit," he told the newspaper.

He said Iraq now is a "dramatically changed country" from the beginning of his assignment there in February 2007. Nationwide attacks were happening at the rate of 180 a day in June 2007, he told the newspaper, but that has plummeted to 25 a day in recent weeks.

"There is certainly a degree of hope that was not present 19 months ago," he told the Times.

He said just this week the U.S. turned over to Iraqi security forces the province of Anbar, the scene of some of the most vicious attacks on coalition forces in the conflict. He said Iraqi security forces are taking the lead in military operations 70 percent of the time now.

Petraeus told the Financial Times the goals, however, have not all been met, and key provincial elections and tensions still remain.