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WASHINGTON, March
26 (AP) -- The U.S. is pushing Iraqi leaders to step
up the pace in forming a unity government, hoping
insurgents do not take advantage of the political
uncertainty, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
said Sunday.
Echoing military commanders, Rice also said that if
Iraqis assume greater control of their country's
security, then the U.S. could significantly draw
down troops this year.
The senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services
Committee criticized Rice's ''excuses'' for the lack
of progress and urged President Bush to make clear
to Iraqis that U.S. troops will stay only if Iraqis
achieve a political compromise.
''They're doing it ... more slowly than we would
hope,'' Rice said. ''And we've pressed that they
need to expedite because of the potential for a
political vacuum.''
Negotiations to form a government in Baghdad are now
in the third month. Iraqi leaders have predicted a
government will be offered to parliament for
approval within two months.
''I think they're doing a remarkable job,'' Rice
told ''Late Edition'' on CNN. ''The only reason that
people are pressing them to get it done more quickly
is that there is a violent insurgency that might try
to take advantage of the period of time in which
there isn't a government.''
Rice said Iraqi leaders are dealing with ''some of
the most sensitive and existential issues for the
new Iraq,'' including rules for the government and
appointments for specific posts.
''This is the first time that Shia, Sunnis and Kurds
have really had a chance to sit down and talk to
each other about these very difficult issues,'' she
said.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who met with Iraqi leaders
last week in his role as top Democratic on the Armed
Services Committee, said Bush should make it clear
to the Iraqis that troops are going to continue to
be there only if they work out a political
compromise. That is a message, Levin said, that
Iraqi leaders have not yet received.
''Instead, they get the kind of excuses that we just
heard as to how complicated it is, how difficult it
is, that constitutions and cabinet selections take
time,'' said Levin, who appeared on ''Fox News
Sunday'' after Rice.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said U.S. troops
are ''a crutch'' for Iraq and that their presence
continues to fuel the insurgency.
''The best way to remove that crutch is to see a
substantial withdrawal of American troops. That's
what I'm for,'' Kennedy said on CBS' ''Face the
Nation.''
Rice said she thinks it is ''entirely probable that
we will see a significant drawdown of American
forces over the next year.''
''It's all dependent on events on the ground,'' she
told NBC's ''Meet the Press.''
U.S. officials are reluctant to commit themselves to
a withdrawal of some of the 133,000 American troops
now in Iraq. Military officials have expressed hope
they can reduce the number below 100,000 by year's
end.
Bush has said a future U.S. president and a future
Iraqi government will decide when all troops leave
Iraq.
Rice noted that talk of a significant reduction of
U.S. forces over the next year ''is because Iraqi
forces are taking and holding territory now.''
With the war entering its fourth year, Rice said
people should look at the positive direction of
events in the Middle East rather than whether the
region was more or less stable than when the U.S.
invaded Iraq in March 2003.
''We had a false stability. It is not as if we
disturbed a placid and functioning Middle East in
which our security interests were not at risk,'' she
said.
Rice said that ousted Saddam Hussein's apparent lack
of involvement in al-Qaida's attacks on Sept. 11,
2001, is only part of a ''very narrow definition''
of what caused the strikes on the U.S.
''If you think that what caused Sept. 11 was that
the people who flew airplanes in caused Sept. 11,
then, no, Iraq had no relationship,'' she said.
''But if you think that this was a broader problem
of an ideology of hatred, of terrorism becoming an
acceptable means in places where there was a freedom
deficit and where there was no possibility for
legitimate political discourse, then you realize
that you have to have a different kind of Middle
East,'' she said, ''and a different kind of Middle
East with Saddam Hussein at the middle of it is
unacceptable.''
AP
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