The nation's top military officer said on Monday he believes the terms of a security agreement with Iraq requiring U.S. forces to withdraw by the end of 2011 will leave the war-torn country in safe hands.

"Conditions continue to improve (in Iraq)," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen said AT the Pentagon. As that happens, "we continue to withdraw forces."

Section: Military Service

The exact language of the accord has not been released publicly by the U.S. government.

"It is my understanding that the 2011 date (means) all American forces" must be out by then, Mullen said.

U.S. military leaders are comfortable with the provisions of the agreement, including previous concerns that American forces have the necessary legal protections to continue to conduct operations in the country, Mullen said.

The Iraqi Cabinet approved the pact Sunday, meaning the political parties in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's coalition government are expected to have similar success in securing parliamentary support.

Parliament is scheduled to vote Nov. 24. If it approves the measure, President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies must ratify it.

News of the agreement comes after a hard-fought presidential election between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, in which McCain argued against a set timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

McCain voted in 2002 to authorize the use of military force in Iraq. He was a vocal critic of the Pentagon's handing of the invasion aftermath, and a supporter of the surge strategy. He said repeatedly on the trail that troops ought to be brought home only when U.S. commanders on the ground say it's the right move to ensure victory.

Obama was an early and vocal critic of the war in Iraq; he was not yet a member of the Senate when it voted in 2002 to authorize the war. Since then he has supported legislation setting dates for withdrawal of U.S. troops, saying that such deadlines would force the Iraqi government to step up and take responsibility for political reconciliation.

During the campaign he said that the president "sets the mission."

"That's not the role of the generals. The president's approach lately has been to say, well, I'm just taking cues from Gen. Petraeus. Well, the president sets the mission. The general and our troops carry out that mission," Obama said in a Democratic debate on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary. "And unfortunately we have had a bad mission. Once I've given them a new mission, that we are going to proceed deliberately in an orderly fashion out of Iraq, if they come to me and want to adjust tactics, then I will certainly take their recommendations into consideration."

Mullen said he was well aware of Obama's vision, and that, if ordered, the U.S. military could speed up the withdrawal. But he added that any such actions ought best be based on conditions in Iraq.

"It's doable," Mullen said. "It's a very significant footprint and a very sizeable force, but we've been moving in and out of this theater for a long period of time, and we have the capacity and the capability to do it."

As of Monday, Nov. 17, 2008, at least 4,200 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,392 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

The AP count is the same as the Defense Department's tally, last updated Monday at 10 a.m. EDT.

The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand and Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea, one death each.