Rumsfeld: Military presence depends on Iraq progress
Iraq-USA, Politics, 5/10/2006

US Secretary Of Defense Donal Rumsfeld was asked yesterday about "the prospect of US troops eventually returning from Iraq. And given the positive political developments in Baghdad in recent days and weeks, which you also mentioned, why aren't you moving faster to draw down forces?"

Rumsfeld said " The new government is not in place. There's not a new minister of Defense, a new minister of Interior. And until the new government, constitutional government, supported by the Iraqi people, courageously supported by the Iraqi people, exists; and we have an opportunity to brief them, these new individuals up, the prime minister and the new ministers, as to what we think the conditions are on the ground and the kinds of conditions that we think will enable us to transfer more and more responsibility to the Iraqi security forces, it strikes me as not timely to begin making announcements unilaterally."

He added "I don't like to set deadlines. I mean, how long is it going to take the new Iraqi government to get their ministers in place? How long is it going to take us to brief them up? How long is it going to take them to have a consultation process among the president and the prime ministers and the deputy prime ministers and the parliament and begin those discussions? I don't know the answers to those questions. But clearly it's something that we have been very successful in training and equipping the Iraqi security forces. They have been successful in their work, which is important work. The people training them and working with them closely and managing the people who are embedded with them, particularly the Ministry of Defense forces, have said that they have not backed away from fights, they have not left wounded or dead out on the battlefield, they have not been anything other than enormously supportive of the American servicemen and -women who are embedded with them and assisting them in their development and progress.

So, when that happens, General Casey and Zal will be engaged with the new government. They'll then make recommendations to General Pace and to me, and we'll then make recommendations to the president. And then, if we have something to announce, we'll announce it. And then you will have an opportunity to report the news as it actually exists as opposed to pretend."

Previous Stories:
  US General Casey view on current situation in Iraq   (5/9/2006)
  US pressure for Iraqi government formation   (5/8/2006)
  Iraqi army faces serious problem   (5/3/2006)

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