Print

Mail

wiki links

Rumsfeld won't promise US troop cut

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday he could not promise that the US would withdraw some of its 133,000 troops from Iraq this year, although he hoped it would be able to do so.

Marine Corps General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not believe US troops could pull out of any of Iraq's provinces in the next three months and leave security duties to US-trained Iraqi security forces.

Rumsfeld and Pace, testifying before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, faced questions from senators about when the Pentagon planned to reduce the US military presence in Iraq more than three years into a war in which about 2,450 US troops have died.
This story has been viewed 1920 times.