Bush mulls troop pullout timeline

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By Jon Ward

President Bush said Friday he will soon agree with the Iraqi government on a "general time horizon" for when U.S. troops will leave Iraq, a significant shift in White House policy that it said would nonetheless remain conditional based on events on the ground.

By the end of this month, the two governments hope to finalize an agreement that will allow U.S. troops to stay in Iraq into 2009 and will include what the White House described as goals for down the road, when more troops can come out.

"The president and the prime minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals — such as the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq," said White House press secretary Dana Perino in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

"The president and prime minister agreed that the goals would be based on continued improving conditions on the ground and not an arbitrary date for withdrawal," Mrs. Perino said.

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Democrats, however, said the president was conceding their long-held position that the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

"The Bush administration is finally facing reality," said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden, Delaware Democrat.

"I welcome today's announcement that the president has reversed course and dropped his adamant opposition to a timeline for redeployment of American troops from Iraq," Mr. Biden said.

Gordon Johndroe, National Security Council spokesman, said the agreement is likely to include some specific dates for "conditions-based" further withdrawals from Iraq, and said he expects much of that agreement to be made public. There are about 140,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

The White House announcement came just as speculation swirled that Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, was going to stop in Iraq this weekend for his second visit, and first since January 2006, to kick off his trip to the Middle East and Europe that begins Monday.