Petraeus: Conditions aren't right for withdrawal

WASHINGTON — Gen. David Petraeus dashed hopes Tuesday that the U.S. could start significant troop withdrawals from Iraq any time soon, drawing the ire of legislators as he suggested that there would still be 100,000 troops there until the end of the Bush administration.

Seven months after telling Congress that he would offer a plan for reducing the troop presence, the general instead recommended a halt in troop withdrawals after roughly 30,000 troops sent as part of a buildup leave this summer, followed by at least 45 days to consider any further pullbacks. The situation, he said, was too tenuous to do more than that.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was among the Democrats who decried Petraeus' recommendation as an open-ended commitment. Meanwhile, many Republican senators countered that a precipitous drawdown would undercut the gains from the U.S. troop buildup.

Republican Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, a longtime critic of the administration's war strategy, told Petraeus: "The American people have had it up to here."

Petraeus responded, "I certainly share the frustration."

The sometimes-contentious hearing saw senators from both parties voicing frustration over the strains on U.S. troops and the limited political advances of the Iraqi government. Some raised their voices; others expressed exasperation. At the end of her questioning, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said: "I give up."

Under questioning, Petraeus said there was "no mathematical equation" for withdrawing troops, and he repeatedly called the situation "fragile and reversible." The closest he came to giving an answer was when Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., asked for a ranking of where the U.S. is on a 10-point continuum of progress. Petraeus said it was "six or seven."

But the general held firm. Further U.S. troop reductions would happen "when the conditions allow you to do that," Petraeus said.

"If you believe as I do — and the commanders on the ground believe — that the way forward on reductions should be conditions-based, then it is just flat not responsible to try to put down a stake in the ground and say this is when it would be or that is when it would be," Petraeus said.

On Thursday, President Bush will make a speech about the war, now in its sixth year, and his decision about troop levels.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said more political reconciliation, which the U.S. believes is key to long-term stability, would occur when the Iraqi leadership "and their communities do not feel threatened."

Throughout their daylong testimony before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, Petraeus and Crocker tried to highlight recent security gains while asking lawmakers for more time to ensure those gains are sustainable.

They boasted that civilian casualties had fallen, al-Qaida was weakened, the Iraqi army was stronger and more than 91,000 Iraqi citizens were armed and working with the U.S., mostly in Iraq's Sunni communities.

But they also were forced to acknowledge that the flawed Iraqi-led offensive in the mostly Shiite city of Basra showed that the Shiite-dominated south is on the precipice of an intra-sectarian war.

The Iraqi military all but collapsed within days of fighting rebel groups there, quashing hopes that the forces could soon take over security of their communities.

Moreover, violence has been rising in the capital. Twelve U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq since Sunday, most of them in Baghdad province. And civilian deaths in Baghdad are rising, from 172 in February to 211 in March, according to statistics compiled by McClatchy.

The five combat buildup brigades are scheduled to leave by the end of July, leaving 15 brigades, or roughly 140,000 troops, in Iraq.

Both Petraeus and Crocker spoke extensively about Basra, acknowledging that the Iraqi-led offensive exposed weaknesses in the Iraqi leadership and military but insisting that the gains of the U.S. troop buildup hadn't dissipated. Petraeus said the operation could have been better executed.

"Taken as a snapshot, with scenes of increasing violence and masked gunmen in the streets, it is hard to see how the situation supports the narrative of progress in Iraq," Crocker said. "When viewed with a broader lens, the Iraqi decision to combat groups in Basra has major significance."

The testimony covered a wide range of topics. Many senators insisted that the Iraqi government bear more of the war's costs. Others questioned the stress of repeated tours on the Army and what the Iraq strategy meant for the U.S. efforts to eliminate the al-Qaida threat outside Iraq.

Senators also asked about Iran's role in Iraq. Crocker gave some of the most detailed analysis of Iranian goals in Iraq yet delivered by a senior U.S. official, saying Tehran had links to nearly every Iraqi Shiite faction and was attempting to create a proxy force within Iraq analogous to Hezbollah, the Iranian-supported Shiite political movement that has risen to strength in Lebanon.

"Iran is pursuing, as it were, a 'Lebanonization' strategy, using the same techniques they used in Lebanon, to co-opt elements of the local Shia community and use them as basically instruments of Iranian force," Crocker said. "That also tells me that in the event of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal, the Iranians would just push that much harder."

Material from The Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today is included in this report.