FORWARD OPERATING BASE FALCON, Iraq — In a clear sign the drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq will be suspended, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday he’s in favor of taking time this summer to assess security gains before more troops leave the country, an idea President Bush is expected to support.
It was Gates’ first public endorsement of a possible suspension, and it would seem to mark an end to the Pentagon chief’s previously stated hope that conditions in Iraq would permit American troops to withdraw in the second half of this year as rapidly as they are leaving now.
“A brief period of consolidation and evaluation probably does make sense,” Gates told reporters at a U.S. base in southern Baghdad. He had just finished private meetings with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and the No. 2 commander, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno.
Gates did not say how long the pause might last, noting that it ultimately would be a decision for the president.
Petraeus and Odierno both have said publicly in recent weeks that they would like to see a “period of assessment” after July in order to get a clearer indication of how troop cuts by then are working. Neither has said for how long.
The logic of a pause, perhaps through September and possibly longer, rests on the fact that the current schedule for troop reductions through July leaves open the possibility that as the Americans leave in increasingly big numbers, security gains — described by Gates Monday as “fragile” — may be eroded or lost.
In separate remarks, Gates described al-Qaida in Iraq, the insurgent group that U.S. officials say is led by a small number of foreign fighters with links to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network, as having been “routed.” That is an unusually strong characterization by Gates of the damage done to al-Qaida, which has been largely pushed out of Baghdad but is still seen by U.S. commanders as a serious threat.
Security has improved markedly since last summer, when the last of five Army brigades arrived in Iraq, adding 30,000 troops to reinforce the military strategy of protecting the Iraqi population and undercutting the viability of the insurgency. After reaching a strength of 20 brigades in late June, the first of the five extra brigades went home in December without being replaced, and four more are scheduled to leave by July.
That would leave about 130,000 or so U.S. troops in Iraq next summer, according to current planning.
Twin car bombs targeted a meeting of Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province Monday, killing as many as 22 people in the latest attack against U.S. allies who have turned against al-Qaida in Iraq.
CBS, meanwhile, reported that two of its journalists were missing in the predominantly Shiite southern city of Basra. CBS did not name the journalists. The Los Angeles Times said one was a journalist and one a translator.
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