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BAGHDAD: US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday that he was
in favor of a short pause in troop drawdowns from Iraq after about
30,000 soldiers have been sent home by July.
The 157,000-strong US force in the
insurgency-wracked country is currently on track to come down from
19 brigades to 15 by July, a reduction of at least 20,000 troops
plus another 7,000 to 10,000 members of support units, according to
military commanders in Iraq.
“I think that the notion of a brief period of
consolidation and evaluation probably does make sense,” he told
reporters after a two-hour meeting with the US commander in Iraq,
General David Petraeus.
Gates said the security situation in Baghdad
remained “fragile,” a comment echoed on the streets of the
capital which was rocked by two car bombings that left 19 people
dead just as he was winding up his surprise trip to Iraq.
“I must say, in my own thinking, I am headed
in that direction as well but one of the keys is how long is that
period and what happens after that. It still has to be determined
and decided by the president,” he added.
Gates has previously expressed the hope that the
drawdown can continue to about 10 brigades or about 100,000 troops
by year’s end.
Petraeus is supposed to make recommendations in
April on US force levels for the second half of the year. Last
month, he suggested in an interview with CNN that he would ask for a
pause in the drawdown to assess whether security can be maintained
with fewer troops.
It is not clear how long a pause Petraeus has in
mind, but reports have varied from 30 to 90 days.
Gates arrived in Iraq on Sunday on his seventh
visit shortly before the first anniversary of a US troop surge
designed to improve security in Baghdad, although the country
continues to battle a deadly insurgency.
-- AFP
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