Rumsfeld: U.S. Troops Can Leave Before Iraq Peaceful
Fri Sep 24, 2004 05:10 PM ET

By Charles Aldinger
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States does not have to wait until Iraq "is peaceful and perfect" before it begins to withdraw military troops from that troubled country, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday.

Responding to questions from reporters, Rumsfeld said Washington was determined to provide security for scheduled January elections in Iraq, where nearly 140,000 American troops are now fighting a growing insurgency.

But "any implication that that place has to be peaceful and perfect before we can reduce coalition and U.S. forces, I think, would obviously be unwise," he told a press conference after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

"Because it's never been peaceful and perfect and it isn't likely to be. It's a tough part of the world. Our goal is to invest the time and the money and the effort to help them train up Iraqis to take over those (security) responsibilities."

Rumsfeld gave no timetable for any possible drawdown of U.S. troops from the costly and controversial Iraqi deployment that has stressed America's military and taken center stage in the U.S. election battle between President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry.

But another senior defense official, who asked not to be identified, said that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq is likely to increase slightly in late December and January as new American troops are sent there to relieve soldiers winding up a current year on duty.

"You are likely to see a spike before the troops who are being relieved leave the country," said the official.

Rumsfeld and other administration officials have carefully avoided putting any timetable on a withdrawal from Iraq and Bush said after meeting with Allawi on Thursday that Iraq would "stay the course" in what he has called a major part of the U.S.-declared global war on terrorism.

"It's not my decision - it's the president's and the Iraqi governments," said Rumsfeld of any U.S. drawdown in troops from Iraq.

Private military analysts and experts have suggested that large numbers of U.S. troops could remain in Iraq for up to five years or more as that country moves toward democracy.

Democrats have charged that the administration not only did not foresee a deadly insurgency that has killed more than 1,000 American troops and controls several cities in Iraq, but has no "exit strategy" from the country.

Rumsfeld said the United States wanted Iraq as "a single country - not broken in pieces, that was at peace with its neighbors and didn't have weapons of mass destruction and had fashioned a government that was respectful of ... all of the diversity that existed in that country."

Rumsfeld said after meeting Allawi and Defense Minister Hazim al-Shalaan at the Pentagon for more than an hour that the prime minister had expressed interest in obtaining more armor for the fledging Iraqi military and that U.S. military commanders on the ground would work on the issue with officials in Baghdad.

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http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6330388

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