Lieutenant General John Vines, the number two US commander in Iraq, said any drawdown would depend on conditions on the ground.

He predicted the insurgency would decline rapidly if the country's Sunnis, Shia and Kurds can agree on a constitution and elect a government that has broad support.

But he said as many as four or five US brigades probably would be withdrawn in March.

"I suspect we will probably draw down capability after the elections because Iraqi security forces are more capable," Vines said in a two-way press conference here via video-link from Iraq.

"So what I would think is we would continually assess, bring down part of the forces, assess what the conditions are, what those effects are, and then continue to do that.

"To rapidly cut it without any significant change in conditions or without time to assess them, I would think, would not be a wise course of action," he said.

Vines generally upbeat assessment of the situation in Iraq comes amid eroding public support in the United States for operations in Iraq and calls by members of Congress from both parties for setting a timetable for the withdrawal of the estimated 135,000 US troops there.

President George W. Bush on Monday reaffirmed the US resolve despite an unrelenting insurgent campaign of suicide bombings, roadside explosions and attacks. More than 1,700 US troops have been killed in Iraq in the last two years.

Vines said he opposed announcing a timetable for withdrawal, as called for by some US lawmakers.

"That's an arbitrary decision that's just based on a calendar. And I don't think that necessarily meshes with the conditions the way we might see here in-country," he said.

Despite the high levels of violence, the general said the insurgency was "relatively static," neither expanding nor contracting.

If the transitional government succeeds in drafting a constitution that is broadly acceptable to the country's Sunni, Shia and Kurd communities and it is ratified, he said, "my assessment is the insurgency could dwindle down very quickly."

"Our responsibility is to provide space and time for this process to work so that this new government and the constitutional process - the election process is allowed to proceed without being murdered in its infancy by insurgents who don't want to see it succeed," he said.

The constitution now being drafted is supposed to be ratified in a referendum in October, which would be followed by elections for a new government in December, completing a transition to sovereignty that began a year ago.

Vines said the insurgency is being sustained from outside the country by leaders who pay for attacks inside Iraq and facilitate a flow of foreign fighters through Syria. He said there was no indication of direct Syrian government involvement.

About 75-150 foreign fighters from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Sudan enter Iraq a month for suicide and other operations that Iraqis will not do, he said. Iraqis, meanwhile, are being paid as little as 150 dollars to plant a roadside bomb, he said.

"What we don't see are groups of 200 or 300 or 400 people operating together. What we don't see is them controlling cities. What we see are small cells that pay people to attack the coalition," he said.

"So intelligence-wise, I don't see anything driving the insurgency up and I certainly don't see it growing at this point. Could either one of those change? A political solution could absolutely change the dynamics," he said.

Vines said that while progress has been made in creating Iraqi security forces, they lack a military bureacracy capable of sustaining them. Developing one will take time, he said.

He noted, however, that the insurgency draws tacit, if not active, support from many Iraqis who oppose the US military presence. "And I think, ultimately, we want to come down as quickly as conditions permit," he said.

In Brussels, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the withdrawal of some US forces in early 2006 would be understandable.

"The more our forces assume responsibility, the less role the multinational force will have in Iraq," he said.

"By then also the capacity of our military forces would be greater and better trained and equipped, and already on the ground there are many responsibilities that are being transferred gradually to the Iraqi forces."

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