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US reveals blueprint for Iraq pullout
 The White House has announced its plans to withdraw from Iraq, saying that a blueprint advocated last week by a Democratic senator was "remarkably similar" to its own. It also signalled its acceptance of a recent US Senate amendment designed to pave the way for a phased US military withdrawal from the country. The statement by Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, came in response to a commentary published in The Washington Post by Joseph Biden, the top Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which he said US forces will begin leaving Iraq next year "in large numbers". According to Biden, the US will remove about 50,000 servicemen from the country by the end of 2006, and "a significant number" of the remaining 100,000 the year after. The blueprint also calls for leaving only an unspecified "small force" in Iraq to strike at fighters, if necessary. Less than two weeks ago, McClellan criticised John Murtha, a Democratic Representative, saying that his call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, endorsed "the policy positions of Michael Moore", a stridently anti-war Hollywood filmmaker. However, Biden's ideas, relayed first in a speech in New York on 21 November, were more warmly received. Even though President George Bush has never publicly issued his own withdrawal plan and criticised calls for an early exit, the White House said many of the ideas expressed by the senator were his own. In the statement, released under the headline "Senator Biden adopts key portions of administration's plan for victory in Iraq", McClellan said the Bush administration welcomed Biden's voice in the debate. Posted by: Fred 2005-11-28 |
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