Bush agrees to set Iraq timeline

WASHINGTON — The United States and Iraq have agreed to a "general time horizon" for further reductions of U.S. combat troops in Iraq, the White House said Friday, the first time the Bush administration has agreed to set any kind of timeline for troop withdrawals.

The agreement appears to be a political favor to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, but the White House said it wasn't a reversal of President Bush's long opposition to any fixed schedule for troop reductions, including the veto of bills that included timetables for withdrawal.

Iraqi leaders have been insisting that a U.S.-Iraq security agreement now being negotiated include commitments on the eventual departure of American troops.

The agreement is more modest than the initial version of the long-term strategic pact that the two countries pledged last November to negotiate.

The accord is meant to replace the U.N. mandate authorizing the U.S. presence, which expires at the end of this year.

Negotiations over the agreement have bogged down, but U.S. officials predicted Friday that it might now be completed by a deadline at the end of July.

There are currently more than 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, now that the last of five brigades that Bush ordered to Iraq in a troop buildup last year have departed.

The White House statement said that Bush and Maliki "agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals — such as the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces in Iraq.

"The president and prime minister agreed that the goals would be based on continued improving conditions on the ground and not an arbitrary date for withdrawal," it said.

The negotiations have been hampered by complicated issues involving the laws governing American troops, diplomats and civilian contractors, as well as mundane details like customs duties and drivers licenses for American soldiers.

Administration officials now say that they are negotiating an agreement that would establish the legal authority for American commanders to conduct combat operations, control airspace and detain Iraqi prisoners, while deferring the more complicated details of a "status of forces agreement" to the next administration.

The United States has status of forces agreements that govern its ongoing military presence in Germany, South Korea and some other nations where it maintains a long-term military presence.

Some Bush administration officials had envisioned concluding a similar accord with Iraq before Bush left office.

White House officials insisted that the agreement on troop reductions was different from the proposals congressional Democrats and their allies have been advocating for several years.

"There's a substantial difference between what they proposed months ago about arbitrary withdrawal dates ... versus setting aspirational goals that are still based on conditions on the ground," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

"There's a right way and a wrong way to withdraw troops from Iraq."

Johndroe said that the agreement would not prescribe American troop levels over time but rather reflect a transition to Iraqi command.

"The agreement will look at goal dates for transition of responsibilities and missions," Johndroe said in an e-mail message.

"The focus is on the Iraqi assumption of missions, not on what troop levels will be."

In Baghdad, a senior member of al-Maliki's Dawa Party, Ali al-Adeeb, said Friday that the withdrawal of American and other foreign forces was fundamental to any agreement.

"The Iraqi government considers the determination of a specific date for the withdrawal of foreign forces an important issue to deal with," he said.

"I don't know what the American side thinks, but we consider it the core of the subject."

Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said last week that Iraq would not sign the framework unless it contained a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Friday's statements noted the gradual handover of security to Iraqi forces, now complete in 10 of Iraq's 18 provinces, though not in the most volatile ones, where American and Iraqi troops continue to wage war with insurgents.

The statements suggested that the final agreement could link the complete transition of control in the remaining provinces to the withdrawal of American forces — a timetable, though, without specific dates.

The statements also referred to the withdrawal this month of the last of five additional combat brigades that Bush ordered to Iraq last year.

The American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is now reviewing the possibility of withdrawing more beginning in September.

On Wednesday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said that he hoped that additional brigades could come out.

Some administration and military officials have previously indicated that as many as three of the remaining 15 brigades could begin to withdraw by next year.