US, Iraq close in on deal for pullout of US troops

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-22 16:03

BAGHDAD - Iraq and the US pushed close to a deal Thursday setting a course for American combat troops to pull out of major Iraqi cities by next June, with a broader withdrawal from the long and costly war by 2011.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (L) shakes hands with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari after a news conference in the heavy fortified Green Zone in Baghdad August 21, 2008. [Agencies]

Subject to final approval by the top Iraqi leadership, the exit date for US troops would be December 2011, although the Americans insist on linking that target to additional security and political progress.

President Bush has long resisted a timetable for pulling out, even under heavy pressure from a nation distressed by American deaths and discouraged by the length of the war that began in 2003. But that has softened in recent weeks.

The timing has major political importance in both Iraq and the United States.

The two contenders to replace Bush as commander in chief, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, spar almost daily over the future course of the war.

Obama wants all US combat forces out of Iraq within 16 months of his taking office, saying they are needed more urgently in Afghanistan. McCain says recent security improvements in Iraq show that decisions on the timing of further pullouts should be determined by circumstances on the ground rather than by prearranged timetables - a position the White House has vigorously held until recently.

The administration has inched toward the Iraqi view that setting at least a target date for withdrawal would make it politically palatable for Iraq's government to accept a substantial US troop presence beyond this year.

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