London’s Daily Mail reports that yet another leaked British government document, this one from the office of British defense minister John Reid, says both the UK and the US plan to reduce their respective troop numbers in Iraq by at least half within the next year.

According to the Mail, the number of British troops in Iraq would fall from more than 8,000 now to about 3,000 by mid-2006. The country has, however, promised the US to deploy 3,000 troops to southern Afghanistan to free up US troops in that country.

Although Reid says that the memo represents only contigency planning, the language in it suggests that the British government has already made arrangements with Iraq’s government to turn over control of security in four southern Iraq provinces.

Mr Reid’s memo, prepared for Mr Blair in the past few weeks, shows that in reality, plans to get them out - “military drawdown,” as he puts it - are well advanced.

It says: “We have a commitment to hand over to Iraqi control in Al Muthanna and Maysan provinces [two of the four provinces under British control in Southern Iraq] in October 2005 and in the other two, Dhi Qar and Basra, in April 2006.

“This in turn should lead to a reduction in the total level of UK commitment in Iraq to around 3,000 personnel by mid 2006.

The Mail is less specific with respect to US plans, but quotes the memo as saying that “Emerging US plans assume 14 out of 18 provinces could be handed over to Iraqi control by early 2006, allowing a reduction in [Allied troops] from 176,000 down to 66,000. There is, however, a debate between the Pentagon/Centcom, who favour a relatively bold reduction in force numbers, and the multinational force in Iraq, whose approach is more cautious.”

If accurate, the British take on US plans suggests that the Bush administration is set to continue their policy of simply pretending the situation is under control while drawing down the US force to numbers approaching what they had hoped would be the size of the permanent US troop presence in the utopian Iraq of their pre-invasion expectations.

The remaining troops would presumably withdraw from an active combat role and set about securing the bases the US has under construction in the country, while the troops withdrawn from the country could be set other tasks.

The administration have demonstrated an occasional ability to bow to the inevitable in Iraq. The original plan for the Coalition Provisional Authority under Paul Bremer called for the body to administer Iraq for several years, acting through the Iraqi Governing Council, while transforming Iraq’s laws and economy on a western-style free market, Israel-friendly model. US troops were expected to withdraw rapidly, leaving only about two divisions in the country within six months.

The outbreak of the insurgency and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s insistence on direct elections put an end to those plans, leading to the much-ballyhooed “transfer of sovereignty” a year ago. The administration still hoped to control events through its factotums leading the new government, and the new government was forbidden from altering any of the new laws and regulations that Paul Bremer, in violation of international law, had put into effect during his tenure as Viceroy.

We were treated to a number of promises of troop reductions throughout 2004 and on into this year, and there’s no doubt that the administration still wished to get to the point where only the permanent US force would be left in place. But the al-Sadr uprising, the first assault on Fallujah, the subsequent swelling of the insurgency and its return in force after a brief post-election breather put paid to those plans.

When the January elections were first scheduled, the administration still apparently believed that conditions in January of this year would be such that enough Iraqis from every segment of the population would vote to create a government more or less representative of the country. As year’s end neared and events such as the second assault on Falluja highlighted the deteriorating security in the country, the administration began to lower its expectations for the elections, settling on the mere fact of them as a triumph. (And in fact they were probably surprised and delighted that the turnout was what it was.)

Since that time, the administration have clearly absorbed the fact that their most favored allies among the elected government are operating from a position of weakness, that the permanent Constitution will not be written by the August deadline, and that whatever government eventually emerges will be an Islamic-leaning one.

And they must know now that Iraq’s relationship with Iran, as demonstrated by the new military cooperation pact between the two countries, will be somewhat more cordial than the administration would have wished.

So it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that at least some in the administration have decided to focus on consolidating the permanent US military presence in Iraq while letting the Iraqis themselves sort out the rest of the mess. The presence of two or three divisions of US troops would likely prevent any truly catastrophic blows to US energy interests in the region and discourage any heavy-handed meddling from Iraq’s neighbors, but would eliminate the lead role of the US in the fighting between the government and the insurgents.

It would probably also prolong the insurgency beyond what would be the case were the US to withdraw entirely, but there is no chance whatsoever that the Bush administration will abandon the foothold it went to such great lengths to create.

The administration face a great deal of pressure to bring a substantial number of troops out of Iraq — one should probably avoid saying “to bring the troops home,” as one somehow doubts that’s where they’ll be headed, at least in the long term — not only from the increasing disenchantment of the public but from the military leadership as well, who are not at all happy with the state of the Army.

So it makes perfect sense that they will be considering ways to reduce the number of troops in Iraq while at the same time trying to prevent the lid from blowing entirely off, and that they would like to accomplish something along those lines in time for the 2006 Congressional elections.

If that is in fact what’s happening, it’ll be interesting to see how the administration spin it. Even more interesting will be the question of what’s intended for those other 80,000 troops. Will they head to Afghanistan to help out there? or will they be earmarked for yet another administration exercise in creative destruction?

Regardless those questions, any hint that someone in the administration is thinking along the lines of how to get out of Iraq, even if it’s only part of the way out, is encouraging. It suggests that on some level, they’ve recognized that it’s time to start exploring acceptable outcomes as well as desirable ones.

And meanwhile, it’s still time to fire Karl Rove.

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