US Troops Could Leave Iraq By 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) - Administration officials say President Barack
Obama is planning to announce that most U.S. troops will be out of
Iraq in less than 19 months.
The plan would leave a interim force of between 30,000 and
50,000 to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to provide
intelligence and surveillance. They would have to be out by 2011.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to speak publicly.
The withdrawal would fall three months short of one of Obama's
central campaign pledges to remove U.S. troops in 16 months.
A senior White House official says Obama is at least a day away
from a final decision.
There are currently 142,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
About 4,250 have died and more than 31,000 wounded since the war
began in 2003. It has cost more than $650 billion since 2003.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)