US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said that United States has no interest in setting up permanent bases in Iraq and insisted that discussions had just barely started on the on the still-to-be-negotiated Status of Forces Agreement.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says American troops are likely to remain in Iraq for the long term, although their numbers will decline and their mission will change. VOA White House Correspondent Paula Wolfson reports, Gates defended President Bush's war strategy during a series of interviews on American television.

The President of United States of America George W. Bush is due to give a televised address from the White House today in which he is expected to endorse the recommendation by his top military commander in Iraq to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by next summer, if conditions allow.

The most senior US commander in Iraq has hinted that he may recommend a reduction in US troop numbers to avoid placing a strain on the army.

The military is more sensitive to problems concerning stress and mental exhaustion than ever before, but more needs to be done, the commander of Multinational Corps Iraq told Pentagon reporters today.

U.S. troops will likely be fighting in Iraq when the next president takes office in 2009 and some U.S. forces will need to stay there to deter regional threats, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said on Tuesday.

Iraq's prime minister Saturday said Iraqi forces are ready to provide full security in the nation whenever U.S. troops leave. Nouri al-Maliki told reporters that Iraqi troops can assume complete responsibility for security at any time.

The U.S. Navy's newest underway replenishment vessel, USNS Richard E. Byrd (T-AKE-4), was christened and launched from the General Dynamics National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) shipyard in San Diego on May 15.

The Democratic-controlled US House of Representatives has voted to fund the Iraq war on an instalment plan, a move quickly rejected by President George W Bush as "haphazard".

A troop commander in Afghanistan delivered an apology today to family members of innocent Afghans who were killed following an attack on a Marine unit in the country March 4.

President George W. Bush vetoed legislation to pull US troops out of Iraq in a showdown with Congress over whether the unpopular and costly war should end or escalate. In only the second veto of his presidency, Bush rejected legislation that would have required the first US combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by 1st Oct with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.

All soldiers in the U.S. Central Command area of operations will serve 15-month tours in the region beginning immediately, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced today.
"Effective immediately, active Army units now in the Central Command area of responsibility and those headed there will deploy for not more than 15 months and return home for not less than 12 months," Gates said, during a Pentagon news conference.