Bush, Maliki reject Dem ideas for departure

NY Times:

President Bush said Thursday that American troops would stay in Iraq unless its government asks them to leave, using a joint news conference with the Iraqi prime minister to push back against a reported decision by an independent bipartisan panel to call for a gradual withdrawal.

“I know there’s a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there’s going to be some kind of graceful exit out of Iraq,” Mr. Bush said during a joint news conference in Amman with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, referring to the final report by the Iraq Study Group that is expected next week. “We’re going to stay in Iraq to get the job done so long as the government wants us there.”

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Mr. Bush also said he and Mr. Maliki would oppose any plan to partition the country, which is increasingly divided by sectarian violence. The two appeared together after an hourlong breakfast meeting with aides at the Four Seasons Hotel here that was followed by a 45-minute one-on-one session.

“The prime minister made clear that splitting his country into parts, as some have suggested, is not what the Iraqi people want, and that any partition in Iraq would only lead to an increase of sectarian violence,” Mr. Bush said, adding, “I agree.”

The two leaders set no timetable for speeding up the training of Iraqi forces, which Mr. Bush described as evolving “from ground zero,” and a senior administration official, who attended the breakfast and was granted anonymity to discuss it, said hurdles remain.

“This is not a simple process of passing the baton,” the official said, adding, “This is not the United States and Iraq struggling for control of the steering wheel. This is the United States wanting Iraq to be firmly with the steering wheel in its hand, and the issue is, how do we get there as quickly as possible.”

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Maliki indicated he thought Iraq would be ready to take charge by June of next year. That projection has several questionable assumptions chief of which is the quality of the Iraqi troops and their willingness to follow orders. Without ticking them off they pretty much rejected plans put forward by the Democrats for early withdrawal, although most of them would be ecstatic with Maliki's timetable.