U.S. general optimistic on troop cuts in west Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States should be able to pull out troops from western Iraq next year provided provincial elections due by the end of January go smoothly, the top U.S. commander for the region said on Thursday.

"I'm very optimistic that we could start to reduce numbers," Marine Maj. Gen. John Kelly, whose area of responsibility includes the large desert province of Anbar in western Iraq, told reporters at the Pentagon by videolink from Iraq.

Over the last two years, Anbar has gone from being one of the most violent places in Iraq to one of the most peaceful, largely because Sunni Arab tribes turned against al Qaeda militants and joined forces with the U.S. military.

But the United States still has more than 25,000 Marines in the area, mostly training and advising Iraqi security forces and aiding economic development and reconstruction.

Some in the Sunni-dominated area distrust Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, but Kelly said he felt most local commanders and politicians would be content with a smaller U.S. military presence once Anbar has its own elected leaders.

"I believe most of them will tell you that, after the elections, so long as they go well and they're transparent and all of that, regardless of who wins, at that point ... I think they'll start to really settle down and be comfortable with their own central government and with themselves," he said.

The United States has some 155,000 troops in Iraq.

Kelly said there Iraqi security forces in his area could now cope with almost any threat.

"There's nothing right now that I can conceive of that could come back here that the police, in partnership with the Iraqi army, couldn't handle," he said.

(Reporting by Andrew Grey, by Philip Barbara)