WASHINGTON – Don’t read too much into the Pentagon’s 26 percent slash to the overseas war budget. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon does not yet know how many troops will draw down from Afghanistan this year. Instead, the Defense Department is budgeting to hold level at 98,000 troops through 2012. Just don’t bet on that.

Though most of the $42 billion drop can be attributed to the pullout from Iraq, Gates said the DOD is not taking chances.

“What we have done is what we have done in the past: We have budgeted an FY12 for 98,000 troops. It’s a conservative approach to budgeting,” Gates said Monday at the Pentagon. “...But that’s not to say that we will have 98,000 troops at the end of FY12. In fact, it’s a lead-pipe cinch that we won’t.”

The overseas war spending request drops from $160 billion in fiscal 2011 to $118 billion for fiscal 2012. That’s a $35 billion cut for Iraq and a $6 billion drop for Afghanistan.

If conditions permit the Afghan drawdown the White House hopes for, Gates said, “then that may be money we just don’t spend.”

How much they spend in Iraq is another bettor’s game. Despite on-paper agreements requiring all U.S. forces to exit the country by December 31, few believe there won’t be some Iraqi allowance for residual American counterterrorism forces and trainers to remain.

That requires money, too.