Iraq Warns of Collapse If Us Troops Withdraw

Iraq could descend into full-scale civil war if US troops are withdrawn, the country's government warned today.

Following reports that the Bush administration is debating the withdrawal of US forces under pressure from its congressmen, the Iraqi foreign minister warned against "leaving a security vacuum" in the country.

Hashyar Zebari told a press conference: "The dangers could be a civil war, dividing the country, regional wars and the collapse of the state.

"Until Iraqi forces are ready, there is a responsibility on the United States to stand with [the Iraqi government] as the forces are being built."

He said he had set out the "dangers of a quick pull-out" to US congressmen.

Iraq's vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi, reiterated the warning, two days after a truck bomb in Armili, a Shia town north of Baghdad, killed more than 100 people.

"I would be very happy to see the last American soldier leave today," he told Reuters. "But the problem is: who will fill the security vacuum if these forces withdraw?"

The warnings came amid reports of an intensifying debate within the White House over whether Mr Bush should announce plans for a gradual withdrawal of American troops from Iraqi cities.

Four Republican senators, including Pete Domenici of New Mexico last week, have recently declared they can no longer support Mr Bush's "surge" strategy of sending an extra 30,000 troops, mainly into Baghdad, to reduce sectarian violence.

According to the New York Times, some aides are now telling the president that he should announce plans for a far more narrowly defined mission for American troops that would allow for a staged pullback to forestall more high-level Republican defections.

Mr Bush rejected such a recommendation from the Iraq Study Group in December as a prescription for defeat.

Officials are particularly worried about what Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, will say when he returns from his latest trip to Baghdad.

Mr McCain has suffered a steady slide in the polls because of his steadfast support of the Bush strategy. There is speculation that he may declare the Iraqi government incapable of the kind of political reconciliation that the increased US troop presence was supposed to permit, knocking out a vital prop for the White House's Iraq policy.

The New York Times also reported that the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, has been pressing for a pullback that could roughly halve the number of combat brigades now patrolling the most violent sections of Baghdad and surrounding provinces by early next year.

The remaining combat units would then take up a far more limited mission of training, protecting Iraq's borders and preventing the use of Iraq as a sanctuary by Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq.

The White House thought it had some breathing space until September 15, when the US commander in Iraq, David Petraeus, and the US ambassador there, Ryan Crocker, presented a progress report on Iraq. But time is running short as the US Senate prepares this week to begin what looks to be a contentious debate on the war's future and financing.

Some Iraqi politicians have called on civilians to take up arms to defend themselves following the latest round of violence at the weekend.

The Shia Turkoman MP Abbas al-Bayati said authorities should help residents "arm themselves" for their own protection in the absence of enough security forces. Mr Hashemi made a similar call yesterday.

"People have a right to expect from the government and security agencies protection for their lives, land, honour and property," Mr Hashemi said in a statement. "But in the case of [their] inability, the people have no choice but to take up their own defence."

Separately, the leader of a Sunni insurgent umbrella group threatened to wage war against Iran unless it stopped supporting Shia Muslims in Iraq within two months, according to an audio tape.

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, which is headed by al-Qaida in Iraq, said his Sunni fighters had been preparing for four years to wage a battle against Shia-dominated Iran.

"We are giving the Persians, and especially the rulers of Iran, a two-month period to end all kinds of support for the Iraqi Shia government and to stop direct and indirect intervention ... otherwise a severe war is waiting for you," he said in the 50-minute tape released yesterday.