Bush close to deciding future Iraq deployment: White House
WASHINGTON (AFP) — President George W. Bush is close to making a decision on future troop deployments in Iraq, the White House said Monday as the number of US soldiers killed in the conflict reached 4,000.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said it "may be possible" that the president decides by Friday whether to continue withdrawing troops after an initial drawdown ends in July, or take a pause to assess the situation.
Bush was due to chair a National Security Council meeting later Monday with a video link to General David Petraeus, who oversees US forces in Iraq, and the US ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, she said.
But she noted: "I don't expect him to say anything prior to the testimony that Petraeus and Crocker will provide" to Congress on April 8 and 9.
The military plans to withdraw the five extra combat brigades that were sent into Iraq early last year -- the so-called "surge" force -- by July, which will bring troop levels down from about 158,000 to 140,000.
Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates support taking a pause of as yet undetermined duration at that point, to assess what impact the reduction in troops has on the security situation.
Perino said it was "not unlikely" that Bush would agree that such a break should occur before any further withdrawal, saying: "The president thinks that there's some merit in that recommendation."
She added that Monday's talks with Petraus and Crocker would provide the president with "their best thinking as to where we are right now and what they think they would like to recommend to the commander in chief."
She was speaking the day after four US soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb in Baghdad, bringing the American military death toll in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003 to 4,000.
Bush "obviously is grieved by the moment, but he mourns the loss of every single life from the very first that was lost in this conflict to the ones that are lost today," Perino said of the grim milestone.
"And he bears the responsibility for the decisions that he made and he also bears the responsibility to continue to focus on succeeding."
Vice President Dick Cheney, on a visit to Jerusalem, said earlier that reaching the 4,000-mark "may have a psychological effect on the public but it's a tragedy that we live in a kind of world where that happens."
More than 29,000 US soldiers have also been wounded in the conflict, according to an AFP tally based on independent website www.icasualties.org.
Despite the losses, Bush used a speech on the eve of the war's fifth anniversary last week to defend his decision to invade and to reject any notion of retreating despite the "high cost in lives and treasure."
The Pentagon estimates that the war has cost more than 400 billion dollars, although Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has said the total bill could surpass three trillion dollars.
