President George Bush used a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday to raise the prospect of withdrawing some US forces if "current successes" continue, but insisted that he would not be influenced by political considerations or opinion polls.
The president flew into Al-Asad airbase in Anbar province with his top military advisers for talks with senior US commanders and leading Iraqi politicians a week ahead of a key report on Iraq to Congress.
Journalists accompanying Mr Bush were bound to secrecy before the trip and Air Force One descended into the airbase in a steep corkscrew movement to avoid possible rocket attacks.
The top US commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, and US ambassador Ryan Crocker will next week testify before Congress on the progress of a surge that has seen US troop numbers increase in recent months. The White House must deliver its own report on the surge to Congress by September 15th.
"General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker tell me if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces," Mr Bush said.
With politicians from both parties under mounting public pressure over Iraq, Senate Democrats are considering a change in strategy, dropping their demand for a deadline to complete a US withdrawal. Democratic leaders believe they can win the support of a growing number of Republican moderates for a resolution calling for the start of a withdrawal.
The president indicated yesterday, however, that any withdrawal would not begin immediately.
"When we begin to draw down troops from Iraq, it will be from a position of strength and success, not from a position of fear and failure. To do otherwise would embolden our enemies and make it more likely that they would attack us at home," he said.
The choice of Anbar for the visit highlighted the relative success of the US strategy in the province, which was until recently a stronghold of Sunni insurgents. Mr Bush told US soldiers there that they could see in Anbar what success throughout Iraq could look like.
"You see Sunnis who once fought side by side with al-Qaeda against coalition troops now fighting side by side with coalition troops against al-Qaeda. Anbar is a huge province. It was once written off as lost. It is now one of the safest places in Iraq," he said.
A report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is expected to conclude next week that the Iraqi government has failed to meet 13 out of 18 political goals identified by Congress.
Among the measures it says the Iraqi government has failed to implement are: removing restrictions on employing former members of the Ba'ath Party, who are mostly Sunnis; and enacting a law to distribute Iraq's oil revenues.