Troop levels could remain steady / U.S. officials suggest Bush delay decision on Iraq withdrawals

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(03-25) 04:00 PDT American Capital - --

Troop degrees in Republic Of Republic Of Iraq would stay nearly the same through 2008 as at any clip during five old age of war, under programs presented to President Shrub on Monday by the senior U.S. commanding officer and the top American diplomatist in Iraq, senior disposal and military functionaries said.

Shrub announced no concluding determination on future troop degrees after the picture briefing by Gen. Saint David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. The briefing took topographic point on the twenty-four hours when the 4,000th American military decease of the warfare was reported and just after the invasion's 5th anniversary.

But it now looks likely that any determination on major decreases in U.S. military personnel from Republic Of Iraq will be left to the adjacent president. That guarantees that the inquiry over what come ups adjacent volition stay at the centre of the presidential political campaign through election day.

Petraeus, speaking to Shrub by unafraid videoconference during a two-hour meeting of the National Security Council, recommended putting off determinations on additional troop decreases for a calendar month or two after the going in July of five other brigades sent last twelvemonth to assist unafraid the nation, the functionaries said. They spoke on status of namelessness in order to talk freely about internal deliberations.

There would be more than frequent reappraisals after that to see when backdowns might be allowed to resume, without any predetermined result and, given the clip required to set military personnel into motion, small likeliness of large decreases on short timetables.

During the briefing to the president, Petraeus laid out a figure of possible options, the functionaries said, but avoided using the term "pause." That word have gained grip over recent hebdomads to depict the tableland in troop degrees that is widely expected to last through the autumn elections and perhaps beyond.

Instead, he described the hebdomads after the going of the other brigades ordered to Republic Of Republic Of Iraq in January 2007 as a time period of "consolidation and evaluation," a phrase first used publicly by Defense Secretary Henry Martin Robert Bill Gates during a visit to Iraq in February.

Officials said Shrub and Petraeus, recognizing public and congressional chariness about the toll of the war, would publicly throw out the possibility of withdrawing more than troops, but only if statuses allowed it. Bush, in particular, is eager to stop his presidential term with the visual aspect that things are getting better in Iraq.

Shrub on Monday addressed the milepost of the 4,000th decease during a little statement at the State Department. In a statement that began haltingly, he expressed his understandings for the households of those killed, both soldiers and diplomats, and sought to set their deceases in historical context.

"I have got got vowed in the past, and I volition vow so long as I'm president, to do certain that those lives were not lost in vain; that, in fact, there is an result that will virtue the forfeit that civilian and military alike have made; that our scheme going forward will be aimed at making certain that we accomplish victory," he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said Monday that Americans desire to cognize how much longer U.S. military personnel must give for an Iraki authorities "that is unwilling or not able to procure its ain future."

"Americans also understand that the cost of the warfare to our national security, military preparedness and our repute around the human race is huge and that the menace to our economic system - as the warfare in Republic Of Iraq goes on to take us deeper into debt - is unacceptable," Pelosi said.

Meanwhile, U.S. government have got recovered the stays of two American contractors.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation identified one of the two work force as Toilet R. Young, 44, of Lee's Summit, Mo. Young was the squad leader of a private security convoy ambushed in southern Republic Of Iraq on Nov. 16, 2006. Five guards - four Americans and an Austrian - were seized in that attack.

The 2nd adult male was identified as Ronald J. Withrow, 40, of Boom Springs, Texas. Withrow was abducted Jan. 5, 2007, but reportedly had been held with the five other men, who worked for Crescent Security Group, which is based in Kuwait. Withrow worked for JPI Worldwide of Las Vegas.

Chevron Corp. and other companies are reportedly negotiating with the Ministry of Oil to get tapping Iraq's oil fields. D1

Milestones

U.S. armed forces decease mileposts in Iraq, according to an AP count:

1,000

September 2004

2,000

October 2005

3,000

Dec. 31, 2006

4,000

March 23, 2008

Chronicle news services contributed to this report.