Days after journeying to the Middle East to solicit advice on Iraq, President Bush will gather additional information next week from an Iraqi Shiite leader and the bipartisan U.S. Iraq Study Group.
The listening tour will stretch into next month, when Bush welcomes an Iraqi Sunni leader to the White House. Meanwhile, additional reviews of the administration’s Iraq policy are under way by the Pentagon and White House.
“I want to hear all advice before I make my decisions about adjustments to our strategy and tactics in Iraq to help this government succeed,” Bush said Thursday at a joint news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Jordan.
Yet on the most contentious issue — whether to set a specific timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq — Bush has already made up his mind.
“There’s one thing I’m not going to do,” he said in Latvia on Tuesday. “I’m not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete.”
By laying down that marker, the president may have been trying to pre-empt calls for timetables that are expected to be included in the flurry of recommendations he receives next week and beyond.
For example, the Iraq Study Group, which is headed by former Republican Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, is reportedly planning to recommend the withdrawal of most U.S. combat forces by early 2008. But even that recommendation is said to be “conditions-based,” meaning it could change along with events on the ground.
The commander of U.S.-led forces in northern Iraq said Friday his goal is to turn over control of four Iraqi army divisions to Baghdad by March. That could set the stage for the withdrawal of at least some U.S. troops.
“I can certainly see a great opportunity to reduce the amount of combat forces on the ground … and turn more responsibility over to Iraqi security forces,” said Gen. Benjamin Mixon.
But he cautioned that a complete transfer of security could take upward ofa decade.
“We have to keep this in perspective,” Mixon said. “We spend about 10 years in Bosnia-Herzegovina, setting the stage for those elements to be successful.
“We need to allow the Iraqis the same time to get their security forces on the ground, to get their government working, and then have a gradual withdrawal of American security forces, but continue to partner with them over the long term.”
