1st U.S. Forces To Leave Iraq By September

The U.S. military announced Sunday that 12,000 U.S. soldiers would withdraw from Iraq by September, marking the first step in the Obama administration's plan to pull U.S. combat forces out of the country by August 2010.

In setting the deadline last month, President Barack Obama declared that the United States would restrict itself to achievable goals before departing, and the timing of Sunday's announcement underscored that Iraq is likely to remain dangerous, turbulent and vulnerable to spectacular acts of bloodshed during an American withdrawal.

Only hours before the announcement, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle plowed into a crowd gathered at the entrance of the police academy in Baghdad, killing 28 people and wounding dozens more. Survivors recounted scenes of mayhem and carnage in the bombing's aftermath, as ambulances tried to force their way through snarled traffic and police fired in the air - either in confusion or, fearing a second bomb, to try to disperse people.

Under the administration's plan, major reductions in the more than 130,000 troops in Iraq will be postponed until after elections in December to choose a new parliament, a vote that nearly everyone in the country sees as a potential watershed moment. A U.S.-Iraqi agreement negotiated last year requires all U.S. troops to depart by the end of 2011, a deadline that Iraqi officials reiterated Sunday.

"The Iraqi government has no intention to accept the presence of any foreign troops or bases after 2011," said Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman.

"We are by no means complacent," Maj. Gen. David Perkins, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, said in announcing the withdrawal. "We know that al-Qaida, although greatly reduced in capability and numbers, still is desperate to maintain relevance here."

Perkins said remaining troops would be redeployed across the country. Although attacks have diminished dramatically, parts of Iraq remain remarkably violent. An insurgency still rages in the northern city of Mosul, along one of the country's ethnic fault lines. Diyala Province, with its mix of Sunni and Shiite Arabs, along with Kurds, has remained dangerous, despite repeated Iraqi and U.S. offensives to quell fighting there.

Even Iraqis adamant about ending the American presence, which began when the United States invaded and occupied the country in April 2003, worry that violence may grow worse amid the withdrawal. Echoing a view often repeated by the military, Perkins suggested that such high-profile attacks were a sign of desperation after the success of January's elections and the negotiation of the U.S.-Iraqi agreement.

"When al-Qaida senses that it is under extreme pressure and it is losing momentum, it works very hard to gain relevance and to regain momentum," he said.