US President George W. Bush is open to some of the major change in Iraq policy that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld suggested in a classified memo days before he resigned, the White House's national security adviser said yesterday.
The memo discussed putting "substantial" US forces near Iraq's borders with Iran and Syria, withdrawing US troops from vulnerable positions and moving to a quick reaction status, and "taking our hand off the cycle seat" through the start of "modest withdrawals" of US and coalition forces.
"Of course they're being considered," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said on ABC television's This Week.
"At some point obviously, we would like to begin bringing troops back home. The president has said that -- he's talked many times, `As Iraqis stand up, we can stand down."' I think the important thing is that we're pushing on an open door," Hadley said.
He did not perceive Rumsfeld's memo as a late effort to save his job. Rumsfeld resigned Nov. 8, a day after Democrats swept to power in the midterm Congressional elections. Bush has nominated former CIA director Robert Gates to replace Rumsfeld; his confirmation hearing is set for tomorrow in the Senate.
The administration is conducting a broad review of Iraq strategy and is awaiting the release Wednesday of recommendations from the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan group of government advisers.
"The president had asked agencies to begin a review of our policy in Iraq, and what Secretary Rumsfeld did, I think, very helpfully, was put together a sort of laundry list of ideas that ought to be considered as part of that review," Hadley said.
"The president really wanted us to open the aperture, consider all ideas, and it was input by Secretary Rumsfeld, helpful input into that process," he said.
As for the commission's upcoming report, Hadley said Bush wants to know what congressional leaders think of the recommendations. "He'll want to hear more what the Iraqi government will want to do. All of these things he will put together in the way forward on Iraq."
Rumsfeld, in the memo first reported in yesterday's New York Times, said the Iraq strategy is not working and a major change in tactics is needed.
"In my view it is time for a major adjustment," Rumsfeld wrote in a Nov. 6 memo to the White House. "Clearly, what US forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough."
Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff said he was not the source of the leak to the Times, but confirmed the memo's authenticity late on Saturday.
"The formulation of these ideas evolved over a period of several weeks," Ruff said in a telephone interview.
He said the options presented in the paper were Rumsfeld's personal ideas developed in conversations with a variety of people, not part of a formal Pentagon review that also is under way.
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