US troops could be in Iraq for a decade: commander

WASHINGTON: US troops could be needed in Iraq for a decade to battle insurgents, coalition commander General David Petraeus suggested on Sunday.   

Speaking on Fox News, the US general said there was broad recognition that Iraq's daunting challenges would not be resolved "in a year or even two years".   

"In fact, typically, I think historically, counter-insurgency operations have gone at least nine or 10 years," he said in response to a question about whether US forces could face a Korea-style deployment in Iraq for decades.   

Any long-term deployment will depend on whether Iraq's sovereign government wants to extend the US military presence, the general said.   

"And I'm not sure what the right analogy is, whether it's Korea or what have you," he said, while emphasizing that a long-term security arrangement is "probably a fairly realistic assessment".   

That assumes that Iraq's government gives a green light, "and, of course, it is very much up to them and their sovereignty is paramount in all of this," Petraeus said.   

The general added that in September, he would present a "forthright assessment" about the impact of a surge of US troops ordered by President George W. Bush into Iraq to combat the bloody insurgency.   

In Congress, Democrats agitating for an early withdrawal of US forces have fastened on the September report as a make-or-break moment for Bush's war campaign.   

Petraeus insisted that he would not pull any punches in his report.   

"I think we'll have had by then our forces in the mix for a good several months," he said.   

"We'll have some sense of how we have done in these various sanctuaries that Al-Qaeda has had in the past that we are now entering for the first time in which we will endeavor to stay.   

"We'll have a sense of how we've done in some of these tough neighborhoods in Baghdad and how we are doing also" beyond the capital.