BAGHDAD: Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama say they want to withdraw US troops from Iraq as soon as possible. Republican John McCain says he will keep them there as long as necessary.

On the ground in Iraq, it may make little difference.

“They’re not that far apart in reality, whatever they say,” Gerd Nonneman, professor of Middle East politics at Britain’s University of Exeter, said of the three candidates.

“All want to look to a withdrawal and don’t see a long-term US commitment beyond the normal kind of assistance agreements that the US has with lots of countries around the world.”

Those who might be most threatened by a quick US pullout would be Iraq’s US-backed leaders. But they say they aren’t alarmed by the prospect of a Democrat in the White House.

“Whoever will be in the White House, there will be an adjustment of the strategy, a modification, but not a revolutionary change or a complete departure from what has been invested here,” Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said.Troop strength “will be decided by field commanders, it will be a condition-driven process, not electioneering promises”.

Iraqis are even prepared to accept Obama’s timetable for withdrawal the most explicit with a pledge to remove all but a small counter-terrorism force by mid-2010 provided it takes place gradually, said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.

“If the withdrawal is organised and agreed upon, then it will not represent any problem,” Dabbagh said.

Numbers going down: US force numbers are already going down, and are unlikely ever to return to the level of the past year’s “surge” of extra troops. The US Army and Marines are at breaking point.Washington now has 160,000 troops in Iraq, which will fall to 140,000 by July when five of the 20 combat brigades go home.

The US commander, General David Petraeus, has said he will only begin looking at further reductions in September.

Even after the surge forces go home, that will still leave 15 combat brigades in Iraq, plus 2-3 in Afghanistan. Military experts say to provide adequate training and rest for soldiers, Washington needs to cut the Iraq mission down to about 12.

“Regardless of the strategy or who’s in office, we’re going to get out, just driven by the conditions of the military,” retired Maj-Gen Robert Scales, former commandant of the Army War college, told the Senate in Washington this month.

“The only point of contention is how precipitous that withdrawal is going to be.”

The US military plan in Iraq has always been to gradually turn over territory to Iraqi forces, pulling US troops back to an “overwatch” role, where they can provide advisers, backup and air support but are not involved in day-to-day patrols.

Half of Iraq’s 18 provinces have been turned over, including the Shia south and Kurdish north where the US footprint was always small. In Sunni Arab areas, where US forces are most active, commanders say they want to press on with transfers.

Anbar, once the most violent province in Iraq, could soon become the first mainly Sunni Arab province handed to Iraqis.

The chief of staff for US forces in Baghdad said this week that commanders hope to transfer control of the capital itself to Iraqis within about a year.

Limits of mission: Although much of Iraq is less violent than a year ago, there are plenty of risks over the 10 months before the new US commander in chief takes office. Local elections on Oct 1 are expected to spark violence while Kurds and Arabs could fight for control of the disputed northern oil city of Kirkuk.

From the second half of 2007, US commanders were able to paint an encouraging picture, with charts showing a steep drop in violence, especially in sectarian killings.

But the past several weeks saw a reversal in that trend after a government crackdown on Shia militias in the lawless southern city of Basra unleashed an uprising that spread throughout the south and Baghdad.

The worst fighting in nearly a year thrust the war back to the heart of the US presidential debate and raised questions about how quickly American forces could withdraw.

The initial outcome hardly looked good for the Iraqi forces, who failed to dislodge fighters from the streets. Petraeus told Congress the operation’s planning was “not satisfactory”. Iraq fired 1,300 soldiers and police for refusing to fight.

But if the fighting exposed weaknesses in Iraq’s forces, it also demonstrated how US and Iraqi leaders envision US troops acting in their future, smaller “overwatch” role.

The fighting took place mostly in south, far from where the bulk of US troops are deployed.

US participation was limited largely to special forces teams and combat air support. The main western ground force in the south, 4,000 British troops near Basra, did little but set up a few checkpoints and fire some artillery.

Even in Baghdad, where US ground units redeployed to the outskirts of Shia dominated areas like Sadr City, Iraqi units went in first, a major change from operations in previous years.US commanders say the Iraqis achieved important logistical milestones, rapidly dispatching 6,600 extra troops to Basra in an operation that would have been unthinkable a year ago.

Still, no one is more cautious about predicting that US forces could safely and quickly leave Iraq than the commanders themselves. Obama’s timetable is beyond their planning horizon.

“Sixteen, eighteen months from now nobody is going to project out that far,” said a senior US military official in Baghdad. “People who tend to look out too far with regards to Iraq tend to be surprised, and not in a good way.”—Reuters