A top US general has said the United States has reduced its forces in Iraq by up to 20% in the last two months, but may choose to raise the number of troops if the security situation worsens.

General John Abizaid, commander of the US Central Command, told Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas in comments published on Saturday that further cut in forces depended on the degree of stability.

"We have reduced our forces already in Iraq by about 15 or 20% over the past couple of months," Abizaid said.

"I would expect that they will continue to come down, but only based on the degree of stability that is achieved there. You wont see a rapid withdrawal of American forces,"

"You will see American forces starting to come down as Iraqi forces start to come up, but if there is a spike in the security situation that would send Iraq in a bad direction, we are also willing to put in additional forces. So, well judge it," he said.

Abizaid has said that about 220,000 Iraqis are currently serving either in the police or in the armed forces that have "good capacity to ultimately defend Iraq and work against the insurgents and the terrorists."

He said stability would only return to Iraq with improvements on the political, security and economic levels.

Veteran Democrat Congressman John Murtha said earlier this month he expected the US administration to be forced to pull out all troops from Iraq by the end of the year.

More than 140,000 US soldiers are currently deployed in Iraq.

PHOTO CAPTION

U.S army soldiers board a chinook helicopter at Forward Operation Base Ramagen in Tikrit, Iraq October 23, 2005. (Reuters)