Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Bush heads for Amman to meet al-Maliki, King Abdullah II
Security, Politics, Region
The US president is to travel to Jordan for a crucial summit aimed at finding ways to tackle the fighting in Iraq. George Bush is to have a brief three-way meeting on Wednesday with Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, and Jordan's King Abdullah II upon his arrival in Amman, the Jordanian capital, early in the evening. The Jordanian monarch and Bush will meet again with delegations from both countries "over a working dinner", an official said. On Thursday morning, Bush and al-Maliki will have breakfast talks and are then expected to hold a joint news conference. King Abdullah II plans to use his time with Bush to urge a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
On Tuesday, Bush said he would not pull US troops out of Iraq until their mission had been completed and sidestepped questions over whether there was now civil war in the country. However, ABC television on Tuesday reported Pentagon officials as saying the US military was considering withdrawing its soldiers from Anbar province. US forces have suffered high casualty rates in heavy fighting in the province. General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, was quoted on the ABC website as saying the US "is considering turning Anbar over to Iraqi security forces and moving US troops from there into Baghdad". ABC said another option, opposed by senior military figures, was to increase the number of soldiers in Iraq for a short-term period. There are currently about 139,000 US troops in Iraq. A Pentagon spokeswoman could not confirm the report.
On Tuesday, Bush said he would not pull US troops out of Iraq until their mission had been completed and sidestepped questions over whether there was now civil war in the country. However, ABC television on Tuesday reported Pentagon officials as saying the US military was considering withdrawing its soldiers from Anbar province. US forces have suffered high casualty rates in heavy fighting in the province. General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, was quoted on the ABC website as saying the US "is considering turning Anbar over to Iraqi security forces and moving US troops from there into Baghdad". ABC said another option, opposed by senior military figures, was to increase the number of soldiers in Iraq for a short-term period. There are currently about 139,000 US troops in Iraq. A Pentagon spokeswoman could not confirm the report.
Meanwhile, the Iraq Study Group, an independent commission on Iraq policy, could not reach a consensus on how many or how long US soldiers should remain in Iraq. The group will meet for a third day of debate on Wednesday. They are having difficulties reaching agreement on what the appropriate level of US soldiers should be in Iraq, whether there should be a phased withdrawal, and if so, under what time-frame, an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the panel's deliberations are private, said. A second official said the commission was unlikely to propose a timetable for withdrawing US soldiers from Iraq but that some members seemed to favour setting a date for only an initial withdrawal, an idea that has been pushed by many congressional Democrats.
