(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-15 10:07

Washington - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates raised the possibility Friday of cutting troop levels in Iraq to 100,000 by the end of next year, well beyond the cuts President Bush has approved.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates (L) and outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace take part in a Pentagon briefing, Friday, September 14, 2007. [AP]

Stressing that he was expressing a hope, not an administration plan, Gates said it was possible that conditions in Iraq would improve enough to merit much deeper troop cuts than are currently scheduled for 2008.

Asked at a news conference whether he was referring to lowering today's level of about 169,000 US troops to about 100,000 by the end of next year, Gates replied, "That would be the math." He quickly added, however, that because "there is no script" in war, his hoped-for cuts could vanish.

It was the first time a member of Bush's war cabinet had publicly suggested such deep reductions, perhaps offering a conciliatory hand to anti-war Democrats and some wary Republicans in Congress who have been pushing for troop reductions, a change in the US mission and an end to the war.

Democratic leaders seized on a White House report sent Friday to Congress as evidence that Bush's war policy is failing. The assessment showed that the Iraqi government was making satisfactory progress toward meeting nine of 18 political and military goals - only one more satisfactory grade than in a July report.

"As hard as they may have tried to spin it, today's assessment by the White House on the political situation in Iraq once again shows that the president's flawed escalation policy is not working," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement. "It certainly does not justify keeping 130,000 soldiers mired in an open-ended civil war as the president has chosen to do."

Next week, the Senate is expected to resume debate on anti-war legislation.

Gates used his news conference to launch an attack on efforts by Democrats to force Bush to change course in Iraq by imposing new restrictions on how the Pentagon uses or manages the armed forces.

Gates was particularly pointed in his criticism of a proposal by Sen. James Webb, D-Va., to require that troops be given as much time at their home station as on deployments to the war front. Today, active-duty Army units are on 15-month deployments with a promise of no more than 12 months rest, and Marines who spend seven or more months at war sometimes get six months or less at home.

Gates said that while he believed such proposals are well-intentioned, they have serious flaws. He said, for example, that Webb's amendment, if enacted, would force him to consider again extending tours in Iraq.

"We would have to accept gaps in capability as units that rotate home aren't replaced right away for periods perhaps of weeks," Gates said. It also might put troops' lives in greater danger by reducing opportunities for incoming units to get acquainted with their responsibilities by working for a few weeks with outgoing units, he said.

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