US plans to halve Iraq troops in ‘08

The Bush administration is developing what are described as concepts for reducing US forces in Iraq by as much as half next year, say administration officials.

The Bush administration is developing what are described as concepts for reducing US forces in Iraq by as much as half next year, say administration officials.

This is the first indication that the political pressure is forcing the White House to think about what happens after the current troop increase runs its course.

The concepts call for a reduction in forces that could lower troop levels to roughly 100,000 by the midst of the 2008 presidential election, and they would also scale back the mission that President Bush set for the military when he ordered it in January to win back control of Baghdad and Anbar.

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The mission would instead focus on training Iraqi troops and fighting the al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, while removing Americans from counter-insurgency efforts in Baghdad.

Officials say proponents of reducing troops and scaling back their mission appear to include Secretary of Defence Robert M Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as well as generals in the Pentagon and elsewhere.

So far, the concepts are entirely a creation of Washington and have been developed without the involvement of the top commanders in Iraq.

One of the ideas, officials say, would be to reduce the current 20 US combat brigades to about 10, which would be completed between the spring of 2008 and the end of the year.

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Many administration officials said they hoped that if such a reduction were under- way in the midst of the presidential campaign, it would shift the debate from whether US forces should be pulled out by a specific deadline—the current argument consuming Washington—

to what kind of long-term presence the United States should have in Iraq.

Missing from the current discussion is talk about the success of democracy in Iraq, officials say, or even of the passage of reconciliation measures that Bush said in January that the troop increase would allow to take place.

The officials said the proposals being developed envision a far smaller but long-term US presence, revolving on three or four large bases around Iraq.

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Bush has told recent visitors to the White House that he was seeking a model similar to the US presence in South Korea.

Bush signs war Bill
WASHINGTON: US President George Bush has signed into law a Bill committing US$ 100 billion to the war in Iraq and handing him a rare political victory over Democrats looking to end the war. “Congress voted yesterday to provide our troops with the funding …they need to protect our country, and I was pleased to sign the bill today,” Bush said in a statement on Friday. AFP