As US forces completed a withdrawal from Iraqi cities Tuesday six years after the US-led invasion, the top US commander General Ray Odierno refused to spell out how many would be left behind.
"June 30, 2009 marks a significant milestone for Iraq as the Iraqi security forces assume responsibility for security within the cities across the country," Odierno told US journalists in a video-briefing from Iraq.
"In accordance with the security agreement between the United States and Iraq, US combat forces completed the withdrawal. A small number will remain in cities to train, advise, coordinate with Iraqi security forces, as well as enable them to move forward."
But when pressed by journalists to say exactly how many US troops would be left, Odierno refused to give a number.
"To let me give a number would be inaccurate and I just don't want to do it," he said, adding the remaining US troops would be acting as trainers and advisors to Iraqi security forces.
"The reason I won't do it is because it will be different every single day and it will be based on how much training and how much advising and how much coordination is required. That will change each and every day."
But the general did say those troops left in Iraq would be "a significantly smaller number than what we had in the cities now."
Iraq was celebrating a national holiday to mark the June 30 pullback, a milestone in the recovery of a country battered by war, insurgency and sectarian bloodshed that has left tens of thousands of people dead since 2003.
President Jalal Talabani thanked US forces for their role in overthrowing now executed dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, and in the years of bloodshed that followed.
"They bore the burden and dangers against the most cruel regime and against the mutual enemy -- the terror," Talabani said on state television.
According to Pentagon figures as of June 22 there were 131,000 US troops still in Iraq.
Only a small number of those US forces in training and advisory roles will remain in urban areas, with the bulk of American troops in Iraq quartered elsewhere.
The Status of Forces Agreement, which set the pullback deadline, says US commanders must seek permission from Iraqi authorities to conduct operations, but American troops retain a unilateral right to "legitimate self-defense."
