Bush: Calls for Iraq Withdrawal Unrealistic

At Summit, President Stands by Iraqi Prime Minister, Discusses Speeding Up Security Handover
Michael Abramowitz and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post
Dec. 01, 2006

AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 30 -- President Bush delivered a staunch endorsement of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki Thursday morning and dismissed called for U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq as unrealistic, following a summit meeting in which the two leaders discussed speeding up the turnover of security responsibilities. "He's the right guy for Iraq," Bush said an a news conference in the Jordanian capital, as he stood next to a somewhat stiff and unsmiling Iraqi premier. At the Pentagon, meanwhile, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff announced plans to shift more U.S. troops to Baghdad in an effort to quell rising sectarian violence there.

In Amman, Bush sought to pre-empt the growing clamor to draft plans to withdraw the more than 140,000 U.S. troops stationed in Iraq, most notably by a high-level commission headed by former Secretary of State James C. Baker III and former Indiana Rep. Lee H. Hamilton. Although he was not asked directly about the panel's recommendations, which will be made next week but were partially leaked to news reporters late Wednesday, Bush seemed to have the group in mind when he said, "This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever."

Bush has a track record of changing policies on a dime, such as when he ousted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld only days after saying he would stay until the end of his term. But his comments today, coupled with other statements in the past few days, seemed to set firm lines on Iraq beyond which the president will not be pushed, despite growing discontent with his policy at home.

These include no major troop withdrawals, no partition of the country, no direct talks with Iran and Syria as part of a broader diplomatic effort in the region and continued strong support for Maliki--despite a leaked memo from National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley questioning whether the current government has the capacity and will to crack down on private militias responsible for much of the violence gripping Baghdad and beyond.

Bush indicated that he and Maliki used roughly two hours of meetings Thursday morning to explore changes in policies that could help strengthen the ability of the Iraqi government to rein in the militias. He said the two discussed accelerating the training of Iraqi security forces and turning over to Maliki full responsibility for Iraq's new army -- which some in the U.S. military worry could be used as a sectarian militia unless U.S. oversight continues.

"Our goal is to ensure that the Prime Minister has more capable forces under his control so his government can fight the terrorists and the death squads, and provide security and stability in his country," Bush said, before boarding Air Force One for the return flight home.

The president said Maliki used the summit to air his concerns about U.S. actions in his country. "One of his frustrations with me is that he believes we've been slow about giving him the tools necessary to protect the Iraqi people," Bush said.

And, while Bush continues to oppose direct talks with Iran about Iraq's future, Maliki appeared to leave the door open to such discussions. "We are ready to cooperate with everybody . . . especially our neighbors," he said.

In an unusual open letter to the American people, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday excoriated U.S. policy in Iraq and called for the pullout of U.S. troops.Bush and Maliki were originally scheduled to meet Wednesday evening in a three-way session with King Abdullah of Jordan. But when reporters showed up at the palace where the meeting was to take place, they were told by White House counselor Dan Bartlett that the session was off.

The abrupt cancellation came amid political turmoil in Baghdad and fast-moving policy developments at home -- including disclosure of U.S. doubts about Maliki's capabilities in the Hadley memo, reports of a consensus reached by the Iraq Study Group and an announcement by the U.S. military that more troops would be sent to the Iraqi capital from elsewhere in the country. Iraqi lawmakers and cabinet ministers allied with Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, a bloc that was pivotal in bringing Maliki to power in May, launched a boycott of their governmental duties Wednesday to protest the Bush-Maliki meeting.

At the Pentagon, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday that the U.S. military is bolstering its forces in Baghdad to deal with "unacceptable" levels of violence in Iraq.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace said that the senior U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., is moving "a couple of battalions" to Baghdad and is determining how many troops he can move to the capital without creating gaps in other parts of Iraq. A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the battalions would replace units being rotated out of the country.

In addition, the official said, the Joint Chiefs are considering calling up 2,800 troops from four Army Reserve combat engineer battalions and sending them to Baghdad and other Iraqi cities in early January. Such a call-up could be politically sensitive, because three of the reserve battalions have already deployed, meaning some soldiers in the units could be involuntarily mobilized for a second time. Under Pentagon policy, that would require the approval of the defense secretary.

White House officials said the cancellation of the opening session in Amman had nothing to do with political tensions in Baghdad or developments in Washington. Instead, Bartlett said that Maliki had had a productive meeting with Abdullah on Wednesday before Bush arrived, and that Bush and Maliki felt "there was not an agenda for the three for a trilateral that they felt was necessary."

"No one should read too much into this," Bartlett said.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said that "there's no snub" by Maliki.

Two senior administration officials, at a contentious background briefing with White House reporters who repeatedly challenged their explanation, said all the parties involved believed it would be more productive to have two separate meetings-- Wednesday evening between Bush and Abdullah and Thursday morning between Bush and Maliki. They noted that Bush and the king had a variety of issues to discuss, including broader Middle East peace initiatives and the situation in Lebanon.

"You have one shot at dealing with the king," one senior official said.

Abdullah had made clear that he planned to use his own meeting with Bush to push for a renewed U.S. drive to address the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, which the king has described as the "core" issue in the region. White House aides said the king pressed Bush during a dinner meeting Wednesday to move faster to resolve the so-far intractable problem.

One senior administration official said the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, received word Wednesday afternoon from the Jordanians and the Iraqis that there was no need for a three-way meeting that night. Khalilzad called Air Force One, on its way to Amman from Latvia, with the news. This official said Bush concurred.

Administration officials insisted Wednesday that the president maintains full confidence in Maliki, despite the bluntly worded Nov. 8 memo by Hadley raising pointed doubts about the prime minister's ability to curb sectarian violence.

"His intentions seem good when he talks with Americans, and sensitive reporting suggests he is trying to stand up to the Shia hierarchy and force positive change," Hadley wrote. "But the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action."

Administration officials would not discuss the memo on the record, saying it remains classified despite its publication. One senior official said that it was appropriate for Hadley, who visited Baghdad and met with Maliki several weeks ago, to raise "probing questions" about the government but that the memo did not constitute a "summary judgment" about the current Iraqi government.

Although the memo suggests several alternatives for the lack of progress by Maliki, the official said the White House has concluded that the main problem with Maliki is a "capability" issue. He said a focus of the Bush-Maliki sessions would be: "How do we increase his capability to turn his good intentions, as described in this memo, into concrete action?"

At the Pentagon, an official speaking on condition of anonymity said the U.S. battalions to be shifted to Baghdad from elsewhere in Iraq would include about 1,600 soldiers from an Army brigade equipped with advanced Stryker armored vehicles. The unit, now in the northern city of Mosul, would replace departing troops from the Alaska-based 172nd Stryker Brigade.

Pace, the Joint Chiefs chairman, acknowledged that the U.S. military fell short last summer when it attempted to quell spiraling sectarian fighting in Baghdad with a significant increase in U.S. and Iraqi forces. Instead, fighting in the capital between Shiite and Sunni Muslims has soared to new extremes.

"The amount of violence in Baghdad . . . right now is not where we want to be," Pace said. "The impact of those increases has not been what we wanted it to be." Pace, however, said Iraq is not in a state of civil war because its government and security forces are "functioning."

He emphasized that Casey and Iraqi leaders have identified more Iraqi units to move to Baghdad from elsewhere in the country. But he acknowledged that this process is hampered by the sectarian and parochial nature of many military units.

"There are some units around Iraq that, if moved to Baghdad, would not be helpful," Pace said. "If a Sunni unit somewhere else in Iraq moved into a Shia neighborhood, or a Shia unit . . . moved into a Sunni neighborhood," he said, that "is not going to help the problem." Moreover, commanders want to avoid creating a regional security vacuum by moving Iraqi troops to Baghdad, he said.

Pace denied that there are any immediate plans to pull U.S. troops wholesale out of the volatile western province of Anbar and send them to Baghdad, leaving the province -- U.S. commanders call it a Sunni insurgent stronghold -- in the hands of Iraqi forces. "Why would we want to forfeit any part of Iraq to the enemy? We don't," he said. But he said the goal "eventually" was to transfer security responsibilities to Iraqi forces.

Pace said he is considering further U.S. troop increases in Iraq among a range of options as he reviews military strategy there, but he acknowledged the stress that would inflict on American ground forces. "If you determine to surge more today, you are taking it out of your rotation base and, therefore, using it today and not having it available for tomorrow," he said. "It's pure math."