US President George W. Bush is drawing closer to a decision on US troop levels in Iraq after receiving top US commander General David Petraeus’ advice, the White House said on Thursday.
The vastly unpopular war is a central front in the political war ahead of the Nov. 4 elections that will decide who succeeds Bush — and who will inherit the conflict he launched with the March 2003 US-led invasion.
“The president is now considering his options and I would expect that as he works through that, as soon as he’s finished, we’d be able to provide you more information,” White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Perino offered no further details, but hinted that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs, may say more at a congressional hearing next week.
The issue of possible US troop withdrawals from Iraq looms large over the US presidential election, with the vastly unpopular war fueling the White House hopes of Bush’s Democratic foes.
Bush’s preferred successor, Senator John McCain, has pinned his hopes on his early and fervent support of the so-called US troop “surge” that has helped bring down once-overwhelming levels of sectarian violence.
McCain’s rival, Democrat Barack Obama, has pledged to begin troop withdrawals immediately if elected and foresees most combat troops being out of Iraq by late 2010.
In a television interview on Thursday Obama said the surge “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,” but said political reconciliation in Iraq was still wanting.
“I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said on the Fox News show The O’Reilly Factor.
Recent polls show two out of three Americans oppose the war and want to see a quick withdrawal, but many view the “surge” as a success story, and Bush has repeatedly said that US politics would not shape his decision.
But the US president now faces freshly confident Iraqi leaders who are calling for a precise date for US forces to leave — the kind of timetable Bush has long described as a recipe for a catastrophic defeat.
The issue has been one of the sticking points in talks between Washington and Baghdad on an accord laying out the rights and responsibilities of US troops after the UN mandate for the occupation lapses in December.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says the deal is all but done, and that it calls for foreign forces to be gone by 2011.
Petraeus told the Financial Times in an interview on Thursday that US combat troops could be out of Baghdad by July next year, but did not offer any information about the strategic agreement.
The general recently wrapped up a 45-day assessment period, which began in late July when the last of the five US brigades sent to Iraq as part of the escalation announced in January last year returned home.
“That period now having ended, General Petraeus through his chain of command has given his assessment, and Secretary Gates and Chairman Mullen have briefed the president,” Perino said.
Bush has repeatedly said he hopes to bring more US troops home, though Georgia’s recent withdrawal of its roughly 2,000 soldiers from Iraq in the face of a war with Russia may have complicated the US strategic picture.
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