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| Sunday, 16 November 2003 |
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Bush vows to stay in Iraq until it 'free, peaceful' WASHINGTON, Saturday (Reuters) President George W. Bush promised on Friday the United States would stay in Iraq until it was free and peaceful as he sought to allay concerns from Congress he was trying to get out of Iraq too rapidly. Bush met Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi two days after 18 Italians were killed in southern Iraq in a suicide bombing that caused Italy's worst military losses since World War II. Bush reacted to concerns from Democratic and Republican lawmakers that the administration's shift in strategy to speed up the transfer of authority to Iraqis could lead to a premature withdrawal of U.S. forces and leave the country open to more guerrilla attacks and thwart the budding democratic movement. "Look, we will stay until the job is done, and the job is for Iraq to be free and peaceful. A free and peaceful Iraq will have historic consequences," Bush said. His national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said in a television interview that "the worst thing that we can do is to try to put an artificial time limit on really getting this job done." The concerns of a too-rapid pullout were voiced by, among others, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who said, "Cutting and running is a very apt description of what we could be accused of doing if we do it too quickly or do it without adequate thought to what happens once we're gone." "I think we have to be very concerned about creating a vacuum. The president has created a quagmire, he wants to get out of it, but I think to do it prematurely would be exactly the wrong thing to do," he told CNN. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week 43,000 Reserve and National Guard troops and nearly 70,000 regular Marine and Army soldiers were being notified for duty in an Iraq rotation plan that would reduce U.S. forces there to 105,000 by mid-2004 from 132,000 now. Rice said no decisions have been made about future troop levels. While the United States is accelerating the training of Iraqis to provide their own security, she said: "We will, of course, be there and will be there in large numbers to be a part of that activity." Senior U.S. officials have been discussing with Iraqi leaders the formation of a temporary government in the first half of next year to give Iraqis more control and experience with democratic institutions and help prepare them for writing a constitution to precede a permanent government. Rice derided those behind daily attacks on U.S. forces as "an insurgency of dead-end people from the old regime" who, she said, "have no future in a new Iraq." As two more U.S. soldiers were reported killed in Iraq, Bush signed a proclamation honoring employers who had supported members of the National Guard and Reservists, part-time soldiers who left their jobs for extended assignments in Iraq and are worried their jobs will be gone when they get back."America needs the Guard and Reserves more today than we have had in decades. We're at war," Bush said. White House officials deny the Bush administration, faced with mounting casualties as Bush seeks re-election next year, is letting the U.S. political calendar dictate strategy. Bush said during a picture-taking session with Ciampi "we will stay there until the job is done, and then we'll leave." He also suggested the United States would not leave Iraq until ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was found. "We'll find Saddam Hussein," he said. |
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