The US President George W Bush has declined to set a date for a US pullout from Iraq but said he would not accept anything less than complete victory.
In a keynote speech at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Mr Bush said that Iraqi security forces were regaining control of the country.
The president also outlined plans for gradually withdrawing troops and handing over control to Iraqi forces.
However, he said US forces would stay in Iraq as long as necessary to complete the mission, even if it meant sending more troops.
Mr Bush rejected what he called 'artificial timetables' for the withdrawal of US soldiers set by politicians in Washington, and warned there would be violence in Iraq 'for many years to come'.
His comments were made in the first in a series of speeches aimed at reassuring the US public ahead of Iraq's elections next month.
Earlier, it was reported that the US government expected that conditions in Iraq would permit a reduction in the number of US forces in the country next year.
Baghdad gun attack
Nine people have been killed in a gun attack on a minibus north of Baghdad.
Two other people were wounded.
A police official said ten masked men carried out the attack near the town of Baquba, which is some 65km from the Iraqi capital.
Separately, the British Foreign Office has condemned the kidnapping in Iraq of the peace activist and retired professor, Norman Kember.
Mr Kember, who is in his 70s, was abducted in Baghdad last Saturday along with two Canadians and an American who worked for the group, Christian Peacemaker Teams.
Videotape of Mr Kember and his colleagues was shown on the Arabic satellite television news channel, Al Jazeera yesterday.
A previously unknown insurgent group accused the four of being spies.
Despite this, a co-director of the Peacemaker organisation, Doug Pritchard blamed their abduction on the British and US governments.
