Gates drops Iraq pullout hopes

2008-04-11 07:27

Washington - Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he has abandoned hope that US troop levels in Iraq will drop to 100 000 by the end of the year.

Instead, he told a Senate panel, he expects that General David Petraeus, the top military commander in the war, will be able to make an assessment of further drawdowns by mid-September.

The secretary held out hope late last year that troop levels in Iraq could continue to drop through 2008. While he would not put a specific number on troop levels, he agreed at the time that a consistent reduction would have left about 10 brigades, roughly 100 000 troops, by the end of the year.

When asked on Thursday by Senator Carl Levin, chairperson of the Senate Armed Services Committee, if that remained his hope, Gates responded: "No, sir".

However, Gates used a more optimistic tone in this testimony than Petraeus and even President George W Bush by describing plans to halt troop withdrawals this summer as a "brief pause". Petraeus and Bush have rejected that description.

Gates said he decided to use the term anyway in congressional testimony because he expects that Petraeus will be able to make an assessment come September.

Conditions improving in Iraq

"If the conditions continue to improve in Iraq, as we have seen them improve over the last 14 or 15 months, than we believe the circumstances are in place for him to be able to recommend continuing drawdowns," Gates said. "But I think while we have used different words, that certainly is my understanding and my expectation."

Petraeus has recommended, and Bush has agreed, to complete the pullout of 20 000 troops by July but halt further reductions after that. Petraeus has said he needs a 45-day period of evaluation, to be followed by an indefinite period of assessment, before he could recommend further pullouts.

During the same hearing, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to dismiss any suggestion that the military might not support Petraeus's plan to stop troop withdrawals. Admiral Mike Mullen said the proposal has been endorsed by the service chiefs.

"That seemed prudent to me," Mullen said. "It's not a blank check. It's not an open-ended commitment of troops. It's merely recognition of the fact that war is unpredictable."

- AP