By Andrew Gray WASHINGTON, June 25 (Reuters) - The United States must not rush to withdraw forces from Iraq's volatile Diyala province and other areas targeted in the latest American military offensive, a U.S. general said on Monday. Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, the head of a U.S. military unit supporting Iraqi forces, said U.S. troops had withdrawn too quickly from Diyala in the past and violence then flared up. He said U.S. commanders had to be sure that Iraqi forces would be able to maintain security in Diyala, a region with substantial Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim populations, and other areas before handing over security operations to them. "A lesson learned is -- do not move our force structure down too quickly," Pittard, commander of the U.S. military's Iraq Assistance Group, told reporters at the Pentagon by video link from Iraq. "We cannot be in a hurry to withdraw our coalition forces from Diyala province." He estimated it would be "a couple of years" before Iraqi forces could take full control of security operations across the country. President George W. Bush is under heavy pressure from Democrats and some members of his Republican party in the U.S. Congress to withdraw forces from the unpopular Iraq war. Earlier this month, tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops began Operation Phantom Thunder, an effort to crack down on al Qaeda militants in areas around Baghdad including Diyala, to the northeast of the capital. Pittard said it would take time to stabilize Iraq, but argued it was in the interests of the United States to prevent the country from being a place where "terrorism can fester." "I would ask the American people and the world for their patience because it will take time to do this," he said. In Iraq, a U.S. commander leading operations in Diyala acknowledged it would be hard for Iraqi forces to maintain security there in the wake of the U.S. offensive. "How long their logistics, their systems will allow them to continue to hold that after we continue to move on to other offensive missions ... that is going to be the difficult part," Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek said. He said soldiers from the 5th Iraqi Army Division had fought "darn well" in Baquba, the capital of Diyala. (Additional reporting by Alister Bull in Baghdad)
