Mixon: U.S. Troop Reduction Could Begin in Jan. 2008

By Ann Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 13, 2007; 1:00 PM

A U.S. troop reduction in northern Iraq could begin as early as January 2008 and would cut in half the U.S. military presence in the region over the following 18 months, the top U.S. commander for the area said today.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, who currently has about six U.S. combat brigades in northern Iraq, including the restive province of Diyala, said he has presented his plan for a troop reduction to Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the senior operations officer for Iraq.

But he stressed that carrying it out would depend upon security conditions.

"We could have a reduction of force that could begin in January of 2008, take about 12 to 18 months, to where we could have a minimum force here that would continue to work with the Iraqi forces in a training and assistance mode," Mixon said in a videoconference from Iraq with Pentagon reporters.

"I currently have five or six brigades that, given the enemy's situation and as you move forward, after about an 18-month period of time you could probably reduce that by about half," he said.

The U.S. troops that remained would shift their mission to training Iraqi forces and assisting them with capabilities they lack, such as attack aviation, Air Force support, medical care and other logistics.

"It needs to be well thought out and it cannot be a strategy that is based on, 'Well, we need to leave. That's not a strategy, that's a withdrawal," he said.

Mixon said that he had also recommended that the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh could be handed over to Iraqi security forces and provincial government control in August. That decision is subject to higher-level approval, but would be significant because Nineveh includes the city of Mosul, a metropolis of nearly 2 million people, which in the past has been the site of heavy violence.

Mixon also pointed to the progress of recent large-scale military operations in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, which are aimed at flushing out Sunni insurgents who established a sanctuary there as U.S. forces surged into the capital and Anbar Province.

He said a recent operation called "Arrowhead Ripper" had killed more than 90 Sunni insurgent fighters and led to the detention of another 130 suspected operatives, while resulting in the death of just one U.S. service member. He said the offensive in western Baqubah involved the heaviest use of U.S. precision airpower of any operation he had been involved in as regional commander, and that three Iraqi civilians were wounded in the strikes.

"Now that the surge has reached its full strength, we are seeing definitive progress," he said.