A faster drawdown of forces in Iraq could help pave the way for sending additional troops to Afghanistan, where the top US commander has asked for tens of thousands of reinforcements.

General Ray Odierno, who leads the US military mission in Iraq, told a congressional hearing that the 124,000-strong US force would be reduced ahead of schedule to 120,000 by mid-October.

"That's a bit faster than we originally planned," Odierno told the House Armed Services Committee.

He said improved conditions in the Anbar province meant only one brigade was needed there instead of two US brigades.

Odierno said "as we go forward we will thin our lines across Iraq" to meet an August 2010 deadline to withdraw all US combat forces from Iraq and reduce troop levels to 50,000.

In an interview with the New York Times published Wednesday, he said the target of 50,000 could be reached sooner if elections due in January go smoothly.

With the Afghan war receiving a higher priority, the stretched US military is under pressure to scale back the American presence in Iraq at a faster pace.

Odierno said he had agreed with the head of US Central Command, General David Petraeus, on shifting some resources to Afghanistan as the equipment was no longer required in Iraq.

"We identify those key pieces (of equipment) that are no longer needed in Iraq, that are needed in Afghanistan. And those are moved very quickly," he said, citing "engineering and aviation" assets.

Commanders in Afghanistan have appealed for more surveillance drones and transport aircraft to help them fight an increasingly violent insurgency.

The general's comments came as the White House convened senior military officers and civilian officials to weigh war strategy in Afghanistan, with President Barack Obama due to join the deliberations on Wednesday.

Looming over the strategy session is a request for up to 40,000 troops from the commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who has warned that without more forces the mission could face defeat at the hands of Taliban insurgents.

Odierno said the slightly faster drawdown in Iraq was possible because the country's security forces were operating effectively with US troops now playing a supporting role.

The US military had cut back the number of bases for its mission by more than 200, combined headquarters and reduced the number of contractors in Iraq from 149,000 at the start of the year to about 115,000, he said.

"We have already begun deliberately drawing down our forces without sacrificing security," he said.

Violence had declined dramatically, with the number of attacks down by 85 percent over the past two years, from 4,064 incidents in August 2007 to 594 in August of this year, the general said.

He acknowledged that "there was a clear security lapse" on August 19 when two devastating truck bombings struck Iraqi government ministries, killing 95 people.

But he said it did not represent a systematic failure by Iraqi forces, as overall security conditions had improved.

He repeated warnings that Arab-Kurd tensions posed the most serious threat to Iraq's stability and described elections due in January as crucial to the country's future and to US drawdown plans.

He also said Iran's role in Iraq remained a source of concern but its training activity of "surrogate elements" had declined somewhat.

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