“I think they will make the ask,” Smith told reporters during a breakfast meeting sponsored by the Center for Media and Security. He called such a request “highly likely.”

Under the current agreement between Baghdad and Washington, virtually all American military forces are set to leave Iraq by the end of 2011…

Smith said it remains unclear how many American troops will be kept in Iraq into 2012, but he said “it will be less than 25,000 — it will be a fairly low number.”