Washington ? After days of congressional debate over possibly withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday that no reduction was planned and that the military force could even grow.

Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon news conference with Gen. George Casey, the U.S. commander in Iraq, said Casey had been instructed to discuss the U.S. troop presence in Iraq with the new Iraqi government.

Rumsfeld said a CNN report that Casey planned to cut the 127,000-member U.S. force in Iraq by as many as 10,000 troops was “wrong” and that the general had the authority to increase the U.S. military presence in Iraq.

“It will very likely not be a steady path down,” Rumsfeld said. “It could very likely be a drawdown with an increase.”