President George W. Bush announced Monday the eventual withdrawal of up to 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia in a move aimed at increasing the capability to fight the "war on terror" and meet other new threats.

The proposals have been watched warily in Germany, which is home to the US European Command, 73 US military installations and 71,000 American troops -- around 70 percent of the number stationed in Europe.

About half of those soldiers could be sent home or through other lightly manned "forward operating locations" in southern and eastern Europe with the transformation.

In addition, thousands of military support staff and family members are expected to pack their bags.

Much of the US military presence here, marked by giant city-like bases and heavily mechanized forces, is now a Cold War relic, better equipped to fend off a Soviet invasion than modern-day dangers.

"The United States has informed Germany in several rounds of consultations -- the latest on May 28 -- about the state of planning on adjustments being made after the end of the Cold War and in light of new global challenges," a German foreign ministry spokeswoman said Monday.

Although US officials have assured Germany that the move is not intended as punishment for Berlin's outspoken opposition to the Iraq war, the plans have left a bitter aftertaste in towns that have come to rely on Uncle Sam.

Dollar estimates are hard to come by but a vast network of caterers, cleaning personnel, subcontractors and other firms serves the Americans and will be hard pressed to replace their business when the troops leave.

Wolfgang Brunner of the ver.di service sector union told AFP that 15,272 Germans work for the US military and half of them could lose their jobs with the plans currently being debated.

He estimated that each of those positions was linked to another 10 service and retail jobs that could be endangered in the long run. But he noted that the timeframe cited by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of up to six years would give communities time to cushion the blow.

The Iraq mobilization has already led to the departure of thousands of German-based troops, most of them from the 1st Armored Division and the 1st Infantry Division with a total of about 28,000 soldiers. Neither is expected to return to Germany from the Gulf.

The US military presence dates back to the end of World War II, when troops entered a country morally and economically ruined after the Nazis' unconditional capitulation on May 8, 1945 and threatening to plunge into chaos.

The Allies divided the country into four zones at the Yalta conference in February 1945 even before war's end -- American, British, French and Soviet.

Some 17 million US soldiers have done tours of duty in Germany, with 250,000 still stationed in the country in 1988.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall the following year and the disappearance of the Soviet threat, cities such as Frankfurt and Berlin that once had massive troop levels bid the soldiers farewell in the mid-1990s.

The GIs left behind US schools, shops, restaurants, housing and cinemas -- a special taste of the American way of life that Germans became accustomed to in the postwar years.

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