(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-02 08:37

WASHINGTON - President Bush's top diplomat in Iraq said Friday that the US plans to keep combat troops there into 2009, seen as the tipping point for establishing the nation's long-term security, and he offered no deadline for a full withdrawal.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker told The Associated Press that he can't make any promises if, as the Democratic candidates have signaled, the next president pulls forces out faster or in greater numbers.

Crocker said America remains "a center of gravity" in Iraq almost five years after invasion, and that violence and political development both hinge to a considerable degree on whether US forces remain there.

Crocker said he and Gen. David Petraeus, the top US military commander in Iraq, would make the best of any change in plans ordered from the top.

"Obviously, we're not the ones who make the policy decisions, not in this administration and not in the next one," Crocker said. "If someone wants to reset the conditions, then obviously we'll do the best we can within the context but those aren't assumptions that we start with."

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., have said they would begin withdrawing forces quickly if elected - Obama would bring all combat forces home within 16 months. Clinton has not set a deadline but says she wants to bring most home inside one year.

Both candidates would phase out the withdrawals and leave a small number of forces behind for specific missions. Either Clinton or Obama is expected to become the Democratic nominee.

Republican front-runners Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney say they would essentially continue Bush's strategy of bringing troops home only as conditions warrant.

The Iraq chiefs are working off a blueprint that calls for "conditions-based withdrawal," Crocker said. That could bring combat troops home by sometime next year if security conditions allow it but leave other forces in Iraq for long-haul missions such as training.

Crocker said the two men stand by an earlier assessment that Iraq would be more or less secure and stable by summer of 2009. American combat troops will be needed at least into 2009 to battle a resilient al-Qaida and still-vibrant insurgency, he said.

Crocker and Petraeus will make their next report to Congress in April. Crocker would not speculate on whether Bush's planned force drawdown would continue after this summer, and he offered no firm predictions on how long any troops would remain.

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