The U.S. military has drafted an initial plan to pull troops out of Iraq, which somehow differs from the promise of President-elect Barack Obama on the issue, the Pentagon said Thursday.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters the military briefed Obama and his national security team on the plan during a recent meeting.
The military's plan proposes removing all U.S. combat troops from Iraq's urban areas in 2009, and all American troops from Iraq by 2011, in keeping with the recent Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), signed by the incumbent President George W. Bush.
However, the plan will make the withdrawal at a slower pace than Obama promised during the campaign, when he called for all combat troops to be out within 16 months -- by the summer of 2010.
Officials said Obama might seek to speed up the troop withdrawal once he was inaugurated.
Reuters reported that the United States has some 143,000 troops in Iraq. The Associate Press put the number at around 150,000.