President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki agreed Thursday to accelerate America’s handoff of security to Iraqi forces, although Bush refused to set a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.
“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 of Maliki during a joint news conference. “We have a prime minister who’s saying: Stop holding me back, I want to solve the problem.”
Saying Maliki was “frustrated by the pace” of progress in Iraq, Bush said the U.S. will step up training of Iraqi security forces, which do not yet have the sophistication or experience to handle the nation’s burgeoning sectarian violence.
“He doesn’t have the tools necessary to take care of those who break the law,” Bush said of Maliki. “He doesn’t have the capacity to respond.”
In order to give Maliki that capacity, the U.S. must forgo a specific timetable for withdrawing forces from Iraq, Bush said.
“I know there’s a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there’s going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq,” he said. “This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all.”
It was an apparent reference to mounting calls from Democrats who want to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq in four to six months. A less specific withdrawal plan is expected to be recommended next week by the Iraq Study Group, which is headed for former Republican Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton.
The Pentagon is doing its own review of the Iraq problem and is expected to issue recommendations to Bush soon.
“I told the prime minister we’re ready to make changes to better support the unity government of Iraq,” Bush said.
Maliki seemed pleased by the president’s commitment.
“We have agreed together, and we are very clear together, about the importance of accelerating the transfer of the security responsibility,” he said.
At the same time, Maliki did not want to leave the impression that his fledgling army is powerless.
“Be assured that the Iraqi forces and the security forces have reached a good level of competency and efficiency to protect Iraq as a country and to protect its people,” he said.
A senior U.S. administration official who was present during Bush’s meeting with Maliki said there was urgency, but not “panic,” in the discussions. The official also cautioned that the acceleration of a security transfer does not mean the U.S.-led coalition will leave Iraq.
“There’s a sense of moving forward and handing over transition, but that doesn’t mean that the coalition disappears,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “People originally had a sense that handover to the Iraqis, and then the coalition sort of recedes from the landscape. I think the coalition just takes a more backseat role, a less visible role, but is there to come in and, in many cases, provide backup.”
