WASHINGTON, June 17: US forces could be needed in Iraq for a decade to battle insurgents, the top coalition commander said on Sunday while vowing a “forthright” review in September on whether a troop surge is working.

Speaking on Fox News, General David Petraeus said there was broad recognition in Washington that Iraq’s daunting challenges would not be resolved “in a year or even two years.”

“In fact, typically, I think historically, counter-insurgency operations have gone at least nine or 10 years,” he said.

President George Bush and other US officials have taken to invoking South Korea as an example of a protracted US presence in a country long after formal hostilities have ended.

But in Congress, Democrats agitating for an early withdrawal of US forces have fastened on Gen Petraeus’s appraisal report due in September as a make-or-break moment for Bush’s war campaign.

A Pentagon report last week said that overall levels of violence in Iraq have not gone down, even if unrest has eased in Baghdad and the long-restive province of Anbar, where the US military surge is focussed.

On Sunday, assailants killed at least eight people while a mosque south of Baghdad was bombed, security officials said.

The general insisted that he would present a “forthright assessment” in September, and said that early results showed a marked improvement to security in parts of Baghdad and Anbar.—AFP