BUSH
WASHINGTON (Reuters):
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush said yesterday that United States troops may be in Iraq after the end of his presidency in three years time, but he insisted there was no civil war.
Though Washington has long resisted setting a timetable for withdrawal, U.S. officials have held out the prospect it would start soon and many of Bush's Republican allies seemed keen to see progress before congres-sional elections in November. Yet with Iraqi leaders and the U.S. ambassador warning of the imminent risk of civil war, the 133,000 heavily armed U.S. troops are seen by many as having a vital role in stemming violence.
Asked when U.S. forces would finally pull out of Iraq, Bush told a White House news conference: "That will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
Bush must step down when his term ends in January 2009.
FRESH CONCERNS
As he addressed Americans' concerns on Iraq three years after the U.S. invasion, however, Iraqis voiced new complaints about alleged killings of civilians by U.S. troops.
The military announced a second investigation in the space of a few days into accusations soldiers shot women and children in their homes.
A U.S. army dog handler was convicted of abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison and faces more than eight years in jail.
The U.S.-trained forces that Washington hopes will take on the bulk of security tasks, however, suffered one of their worst setbacks when suspected al-Qaida guerrillas killed at least 22 people, mostly policemen, and freed over 30 prisoners from jail.
About 100 insur-gents staged the dawn raid on two official buildings in Miqd-adiya, northeast of Baghdad, officials said. Ten of the attackers were also killed, one source said.
GOOD SIGN?
Bush dismissed comments from former U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi that sectarian violence constituted civil war, saying it was a good sign that an attack a month ago on a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra failed to spark all-out conflict.
"The way I look at it, the Iraqis took a look and decided not to give in to civil war," Bush said.
A delegation of U.S. senators expressed American impatience with Iraqi leaders' failure, three months after an election, to form a government that could help contain the conflict.
"The American people are of good heart ... but do not try in any way to deceive them or let this progress indicate to the world a less than sincere and prompt effort to bring about a new government," John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after meeting Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
"There has to be some pressure put on political leaders to reach a settlement," his opposition Democratic colleague Carl Levin said. "The American people are impatient."
A U.S. soldier was shot dead in Baghdad on Tuesday, the 2,319th American serviceman to die in the three-year conflict.
The U.S. military said it was investigating Iraqi police allegations that its troops shot dead a family of 11, among them five children, in their home at Ishaqi, north of Baghdad, last week. Soldiers said they killed four, including a militant.
"Because of that discrepancy, we have opened an investigation," said spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson.
Police Colonel Farouq Hussein said at the time the victims were all shot in the head: "It's a clear and perfect crime."
HADITHA "RAMPAGE"
The probe began after a magazine published allegations that U.S. Marines killed 15 civilians in another town last year. A criminal inquiry into those deaths was launched last week.
Townspeople interviewed by Reuters on Tuesday said troops went on a rampage after a Marine was killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, west of Baghdad, in November. The witnesses rejected an original U.S. account that the 15 also died in the bomb blast -- a version also now dismissed by U.S. commanders.
"In this house, the whole family was killed, including children," said one resident, who declined to be named.
Accusations that U.S. soldiers often kill civilians and that little disciplinary action has resulted in the few cases investigated have aroused Iraqi anger since the invasion.
"The occupying forces have started to use savage methods," Sunni Arab politician Hussein al-Falluji said. "The Haditha incident tells us that U.S. patience has come to an end."
Allawi, the former prime minister now tipped to be security supremo, called for Iraqi forces to be reinforced to prevent sectarian conflict exploding into all-out civil war:
"We must strengthen the army, police, security and intelligence services," he told Reuters in an interview. "If not, the situation will be disastrous."
After the attack on the police at Miqdadiya, the governor of Diyala province, which has a volatile ethnic and sectarian mix and has seen many al Qaeda attacks in recent months, had the police chief and other officers held on suspicion of complicity.
The violence occurred as Shi'ite pilgrims, estimated by local officials at more than 2 million, concluded the rites of Arbain in the holy city of Kerbala and began to head home.
The two-day mourning ceremony passed off with little incident, guarded by thousands of Iraqi police and troops.
