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WORLD / America
US Defense Secretary hopes for more troop cuts
(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-15 10:07
Washington - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates raised the possibility
Friday of cutting troop levels in Iraq to 100,000 by the end of next
year, well beyond the cuts President Bush has approved.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates (L) and outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman
Gen. Peter Pace take part in a Pentagon briefing, Friday, September 14,
2007. [AP]?
Stressing that he was expressing a hope, not an administration plan,
Gates said it was possible that conditions in Iraq would improve enough
to merit much deeper troop cuts than are currently scheduled for 2008.
Asked at a news conference whether he was referring to lowering today's
level of about 169,000 US troops to about 100,000 by the end of next
year, Gates replied, "That would be the math." He quickly added, however,
that because "there is no script" in war, his hoped-for cuts could vanish.
It was the first time a member of Bush's war cabinet had publicly
suggested such deep reductions, perhaps offering a conciliatory hand to
anti-war Democrats and some wary Republicans in Congress who have been
pushing for troop reductions, a change in the US mission and an end to
the war.
Democratic leaders seized on a White House report sent Friday to Congress
as evidence that Bush's war policy is failing. The assessment showed that
the Iraqi government was making satisfactory progress toward meeting nine
of 18 political and military goals - only one more satisfactory grade
than in a July report.
"As hard as they may have tried to spin it, today's assessment by the
White House on the political situation in Iraq once again shows that the
president's flawed escalation policy is not working," Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement. "It certainly does not
justify keeping 130,000 soldiers mired in an open-ended civil war as the
president has chosen to do."
Next week, the Senate is expected to resume debate on anti-war
legislation.
Gates used his news conference to launch an attack on efforts by
Democrats to force Bush to change course in Iraq by imposing new
restrictions on how the Pentagon uses or manages the armed forces.
Gates was particularly pointed in his criticism of a proposal by Sen.
James Webb, D-Va., to require that troops be given as much time at their
home station as on deployments to the war front. Today, active-duty Army
units are on 15-month deployments with a promise of no more than 12
months rest, and Marines who spend seven or more months at war sometimes
get six months or less at home.
Gates said that while he believed such proposals are well-intentioned,
they have serious flaws. He said, for example, that Webb's amendment, if
enacted, would force him to consider again extending tours in Iraq.
"We would have to accept gaps in capability as units that rotate home
aren't replaced right away for periods perhaps of weeks," Gates said. It
also might put troops' lives in greater danger by reducing opportunities
for incoming units to get acquainted with their responsibilities by
working for a few weeks with outgoing units, he said.
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