US Military Chief Warns Against Iraq Withdrawal

An American military commander in Iraq today said a senior Republican senator's call for a troop withdrawal would represent "a giant step backwards" in one of the country's most precarious regions.

Major General Rick Lynch, commander of troops south of Baghdad, told Pentagon reporters in a video conference from Iraq he did not back Senator John Warner's call for George Bush to begin bringing some US troops back by Christmas.

"If coalition soldiers were to leave, having fought hard for that terrain, having denied the enemy their sanctuaries, what'd happen is the enemy would come back," he said.

"He'd start building the bombs again, he'd start attacking the locals again and he'd start exporting that violence into Baghdad and we would take a giant step backward."

He was replying to Mr Warner, who recently returned from Iraq and is widely respected by his Republican colleagues. He said yesterday: "We simply cannot, as a nation, stand and continue to put our troops at continuous risk of loss of life and limb without beginning to take some decisive action."

The senator, navy secretary during the Vietnam war, first broke ranks with Mr Bush on Iraq in June, but the call yesterday went much further, coming in a week when Mr Bush had invoked the spectre of Vietnam to argue for a sustained US troop presence in Iraq and admitted "frustration" with the Iraqi government of Nuri al-Maliki.

Following Mr Maliki's assertion Iraq could "find friends elsewhere" - almost certainly a reference to Iran - Mr Bush praised him. However, a National Intelligence Estimate published yesterday said Iraqi leaders were "unable to govern effectively" and will struggle to achieve national political reconciliation.

Warner's call for troop withdrawals - which he said could lead to "Iraqi forces taking the major responsibility" to combat the insurgency - is likely to increase the pressure on Mr Bush, who has opposed setting a date for any withdrawal and contends that conditions on the ground should dictate deployments.

Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was today reported to be planning to advise Mr Bush to reduce the US presence in Iraq next year by almost half.

Quoting White House and US marine officials, the Los Angeles Times said Major General Pace believes keeping in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the US military.

The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, goes to Congress next month to provide an up-to-date assessment of progress.