This picture releasd by the US Army shows US soldiers securing a neighborhood as their company looks for a weapons cache near the town of in Hawijah, in northern Iraq.(AFP photo)

    BEIJING, Nov. 25 -- The Pentagon is planning to drop US force level in Iraq to 138,000 after the December 15 Iraqi elections, US military officials said Wednesday.

    And it is considering dropping the number to about 100,000 mid-next year if conditions allow.

    Officials said any decision on troop reductions will be made in accordance with political and security conditions in Iraq and progress in developing US-trained Iraqi security forces.

   "The US military looks at the full range of things that could occur in Iraq and makes plans accordingly, and makes plans for conditions that would lead to a smaller coalition force as well as conditions that would lead to a larger coalition force," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

    Whitman said that "the current thinking" is that the number of American troops, which is now over 150,000, would fall to around 138,000, where it was before a buildup to help provide security for the referendum on the constitution in October and the coming elections on December 15 to choose a new government.

    Mr Whitman's comments come amid intensifying debate in Washington and across the country over whether US troops should be withdrawn from Iraq.

    On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, far from denying the withdrawal plan reported that day in The Washington Post, said a gradual pullout of troops could begin "fairly soon", and that the number of coalition troops is "clearly going to come down".

    Dr Rice told Fox News the US would not need to maintain its present troop levels in Iraq for "very much longer", because Iraqi security forces "are stepping up". She said: "I think that's how the President will want to look at this." Enditem

(Agencies)