Gen. David Petraeus told Congress on Monday that he has recommended to President Bush that the U.S. withdraw one Army brigade and a Marine unit by this December as the first dividend of the seven-month-old troop surge in Iraq.

In much-anticipated testimony in a House hearing room that was repeatedly disrupted by war protesters, Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, testified that all of the nearly 30,000 Army and Marine reinforcements would be removed from Iraq by mid-July.

“The military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met,” Petraeus told a special joint hearing of the House Armed Services and House Foreign Affairs committees.

While the pullout this year of 6,000 troops from the Army and Marines would be earlier than planned, Petraeus did not budge from his opposition to a fixed timetable for the removal of the remaining 132,000 pre-surge troops. Their withdrawal will depend, he said, on the ability of Iraqi forces to eventually take over security duties.

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“It would be premature to make recommendations on the pace of such reductions at this time,” he said.

Democrats, whose leaders say the Army is stretched to the breaking point and who want a immediate withdrawal of all troops, were unimpressed.

“The current escalation in our military presence in Iraq may have produced some tactical successes, but strategically the escalation has failed,” said Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, D-Calif.

Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, declined to say that Iraq’s government has failed and instead provided a sympathetic picture of the country’s beleaguered leader, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Crocker testified that Iraq is in the midst of a political revolution and that some of its achievements at the local level are not reflected in the 18 benchmarks of progress set by Congress.

“I do believe that Iraq’s leaders have the will to tackle the country’s pressing problems, although it will take longer than we originally anticipated,” the ambassador said.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ auditor, said last week it could not confirm any reduction in sectarian violence, the phenomenon that pushed Iraq close to civil war and prompted Bush to order the troop surge in January.

But Petraeus produced data he said was backed by U.S. intelligence agencies that showed a significant decrease in Sunni-Shiite violence since all reinforcement brigades arrived in June.

Such deaths have plunged by 80 percent in Baghdad since December, the height of sectarian violence, he said. Car and suicide bombings, the signature attack of al Qaeda operatives, fell from 175 in March to 90 in August, or three per day on average.

Lantos suggested Petraeus and Crocker were White House mouthpieces.

“The fact remains, gentlemen, that the administration has sent you here today to convince the members of these two committees and the Congress that victory is at hand,” Lantos said. “With all due respect to you, I must say I don’t buy it.”

Petraeus replied, “I wrote the testimony myself.”

rscarborough@dcexaminer.com