"This will deal a heavy blow to many regions," Defence Minister Peter Struck said in Appen, northern Germany, during a tour of German military bases.

US President George W. Bush announced Monday that up to 70,000 troops would eventually leave Europe and Asia in a move aimed at increasing the capability to fight the "war on terror" and meet other new threats.

Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld want to abandon the large Cold War bases of the past deemed no longer relevant to security needs and create smaller, flexible contingents that can be rapidly sent to conflict areas.

Germany is home to the US European Command and some 71,000 troops, about 70 percent of the total number in Europe, are stationed at 73 military installations, many of them in the south of the country.

The decision, which will be an added burden on the eurozone's biggest economy just as a recovery gets underway, comes as Berlin undertakes its own major military reform. Struck said he understood Washington's motives.

"Bush and Rumsfeld are doing nothing different to what we are," he said.

Berlin's spokesman on transatlantic affairs said the plan was unfortunate but that it was also "a success, that together we have met the challenge of the Cold War and ended the division in Europe."

The spokesman, Karsten Voigt, told Deutschlandfunk radio that apart from Britain, Germany remained "the closest to Washington of all the European states" and the "biggest military post for the USA in Europe".

But the US move to cut its military umbilical cord, particularly in Europe, comes amid recent tensions between Washington and Berlin, and a German government source suggested the news of a major pullout had not been welcome.

"Berlin continues to signal its interest in an American military presence in Germany and has emphasised that it can offer ideal conditions for bases," the source said on condition of anonymity.

Under the Bush plan, two heavy army divisions of about 30,000 troops will withdraw from Germany to be replaced by a Stryker combat brigade of 3,600 personnel, according to senior US defense officials.

The 1st Armored Division and the 1st Infantry Division will return to the United States in 2006 at the earliest, to synchronize with a round of base closures in the United States.

A spokesman for the ver.di services union told AFP on Monday that 15,272 Germans work for the US military and that half could lose their jobs under the plans currently being debated.

The jobs of thousands of others reliant on the US presence could also go.

"The jobs of almost 700 people here are now at risk," Pia Beckmann, the mayor of Wuerzburg where the 1st Infantry Division is based, told the N-24 television news channel Tuesday.

A German opposition spokesman on defence, Christian Schmidt, called on the government in Berlin to give financial aid to the regions worst hit.

He also accused the United States of "withdrawing from part of its responsibilities in NATO," and thereby "endangering security in Europe."

Meanwhile, the US military in Germany reiterated that no final decisions on numbers had been taken, nor had a timetable for their withdrawal been finalised.

"It is important to understand that the president's transformation plan will take several years to implement," US European Command said in a statement.

"There is no set timetable, nor will implementation be a 'big bang' event, with changes occurring all at once."

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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