Yesterday General George Casey, the top general in Iraq, indicated that despite combat readiness of only one Iraqi battalion, America might be able to begin withdrawing troops next year. But now, as the AP's Robert Burns reports, Casey is stepping back from that claim.

Sunni Arab opposition to Iraq's draft constitution has increased the potential for instability and called into question U.S. hopes for substantial troop cuts next spring, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said Friday.

Gen. George Casey, speaking at a Pentagon news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said his prediction in July that "fairly substantial" troop withdrawals could begin next spring was based on a key assumption: that satisfactory progress on the political and security fronts would continue.

"Now this constitution has come out, and it didn't come out as the national compact that we thought it was going to be," he said.

"And there's division there ... and that caused the situation to change a little bit," Casey said.