U.S. Commanders in Iraq Favor Pause in Troop Cuts

In an interview Wednesday with radio host Rush Limbaugh, Vice President Cheney said circumstances in Iraq would dictate whether troop numbers could go below pre-buildup levels. "We had 15 brigades in Iraq when we started the surge. We added five brigades; they are now in the process of coming out, and we'll get back to pre-surge levels by this summer. But we have not made a decision to go below that," Cheney said.

Privately, White House advisers say Bush is loath to do anything that would jeopardize what he sees as hard-won security gains and predict he would be very receptive to any go-slow suggestion from Petraeus.

U.S. military officials in Baghdad say that trends in Iraq are good but that officials back home and indeed the American public may not grasp how uncertain the situation remains.

"We say, 'Violence is down, but' -- and no one hears the 'but,' " said Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who oversees the training and equipping of the Iraqi army and police. "The war is not over."

Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, a strategic adviser to Petraeus, said that Iraq is "kind of normalizing" but that "it is still tenuous."

Such warnings are driven by a sense that the U.S. success in improving security in 2007 surprised the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, Shiite extremists and other factions. U.S. officials say Iranian agents especially were knocked off their stride by how effectively U.S. Special Operations forces targeted their operations.

These officials say they expect that in 2008 some adversaries will try out new ways to undermine or attack U.S. and Iraqi efforts. In addition, there is concern that some groups simply have been biding their time, waiting for the U.S. counteroffensive to end.

Also, while Baghdad has been surprisingly quiet this winter, violence has increased in Mosul, the northern city that officials say has become a new hub for al-Qaeda in Iraq, and internecine fighting among Shiites has made parts of southern Iraq unstable.

At the same time, the U.S. government is encouraging the Iraqi government to hire more members of "Concerned Local Citizens" groups -- armed organizations that often include former Sunni insurgents -- into the police or army. The Shiite-dominated Baghdad government has never been comfortable with the groups, which have received about $120 million in U.S. funding over the past year. The Iraqi government is supposed to begin making those payments this summer, but it is unclear if that will happen.

Finally, Iraq could begin preparing for provincial elections in the summer, which U.S. officials worry might spur an increase in violence.

Asked if he considers Iraq fragile, Odierno said, "I think if we move forward with operational patience, it isn't that fragile." But he continued, "I think if we leave tomorrow, it would be very fragile."

In terms of the size of the U.S. presence, he said, "I am not saying that we must stay here at the current levels, but I believe we must remain for some time in the future, assessing conditions to determine the appropriate force levels."

Staff writer Michael Abramowitz in Torrance, Calif., contributed to this report.