With combat operations all but over by Wednesday, day 28 of the conflict, that announcement could come any day now.

But military officials are cautious not to second-guess the powerful four-star general.

"I have no estimate, I have no guess as to when the announcement will come. I can't see inside the general's head," Major Rumi Nielson-Green said at the As-Saliyah, Qatar, war command headquarters.

She did indicate, however, that it seemed certain the announcement would come from Franks, even though the tall Texan commander is known to shun the limelight.

"I think at some point he will make this determination," Nielson-Green said, pointing out that President George W. Bush had made it clear the war is over when General Franks says so.

"I would think it will be much sooner rather than later," said British Lieutenant Colonel Ronnie McCourt.

Asked whether that meant days rather than weeks, he said: "I would hope so."

"The danger is leaving it too late, which could allow civil disruptions to come up, or to do it too early, and when we get the humanitarian aid in and people start taking potshots or try to ambush," he said.

"That's a fine balance, not an exact science."

Central Command will not say where the announcement would be made, but Franks has said he may head to Baghdad this week.

Asked by Fox News television whether he was planning a trip to the Iraqi capital, the Centcom commander said on Sunday: "That would be my guess," though he stressed that the aim would be to visit US troops.

Keen to be seen as a liberating rather than an occupying force, the US military has made it clear the visit would be low-key, as would any announcement formally ending the war.

"I'm not looking to have a victory parade in downtown Baghdad," Franks said.

While the war could be declared over any time now, Centcom stressed that Iraq remains an unsafe place.

"There is still an inherent risk," says Nielson-Green, adding that "in some cases, bullets are flying around."

US forces claim they came under fire Tuesday in the northern city of Mosul, where witnesses said the troops fired into a crowd killing 12 people.

Nielson-Green said that while US soldiers still faced pockets of resistance, these were "not coherent or strategically significant."

McCourt, for his part, cautioned that "there may be in some little village in a hill somewhere, for all I know, some people with RPG-7s and Kalashnikovs who are ready to come out and say 'no we haven't finished'."

But Nielson-Green warned the country may never be totally safe, pointing out that even in the United States "there's shootings going on every day."

SPACE.WIRE