Lieutenant General Earl Hailston said the planning was in the "formative" stage and any redeployment would require the approval of General Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces, and General David McKiernan, commander of ground forces.

"The first thing I have to do is make sure that forces that are no longer required by General McKiernan, ... that we are able to redeploy those so that they can pick up the other remaining tasks they have around the world," Hailston said.

Some marines have been deployed for as long as 10 months, and they would likely be among the first to be sent back to their home bases, Hailston said.

About 72,000 marines were deployed for the war in Iraq.

They formed an air-ground task force that included four infantry regimes, two artillery regimes, three light armored reconnaissance battalions, three tank battalions and an aviation group that had more than 400 aircraft.

The drive into the heart of Iraq took them more than 820 kilometersmiles) inland, a feat not undertaken by marines since 1803.

"Sophisticated communications and logistics systems developed from lessons learned during the Gulf War allowed our forces to move farther and faster than ever before," Hailston said.

The marines' supply lines were "drawn and they were tested," he said. But they lost no convoys, even though they were huge and lasted for days, he added.

Hailston disputed the view that the Iraqis did not put up much of a defense, noting the strong fighting in some of the southern cities and at the gates of Baghdad.

Iraq's military "fought very hard and was not a pushover," he said. "What happened is we had great forces."

"We put down air-ground power that just overwhelmed anybody," he said.

SPACE.WIRE