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| Powell: Some troops may withdraw this year |
| Thursday, January 13, 2005 |
Washington, DC, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. troops will begin leaving Iraq this year, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an interview released Wednesday by the State Department.
Powell said he hoped the Iraqi army, national guards and police will soon play a larger security role, allowing the United States to withdraw some troops.
In the interview with National Public Radio, Powell gave no timetable for troop withdrawal but said: "I believe that during 2005 (the Iraqis) will be able to assume a greater burden, and ... the burden on our troops should go down, and we should start to see our numbers going in the other direction."
Almost 140,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed in Iraq while the Pentagon has listed more than 2,800 U.S. soldiers as killed or wounded.
So far nearly a million U.S. troops have been deployed for war in Iraq or Afghanistan since those conflicts began.
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posted by J.R. @ 3:11:00 AM   |
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