Global Policy Forum

By Brendan Murray and Richard Keil

President George W. Bush said he hasn't decided on future U.S. troop levels in Iraq, and the president of the world's most populous Muslim nation called for greater international engagement in Iraq. "I haven't made any decisions about troop increases or troop decreases," Bush said today in Bogor, Indonesia, after talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the end of a five-day Asia trip. The president said there won't be any changes made "until I hear from a variety of sources, including our own U.S. military."

Yudhoyono, asked if he favored an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, said he would support such a pullout only after a broad range of political, military and social improvements there. Bush said that in their closed-door talks Yudhoyono didn't recommend a speedy retreat.

A U.S. Defense Department review of options for Iraq is likely to advocate a short-term increase in troops, followed by a long-term commitment to train and advise Iraqi forces, the Washington Post reporter earlier today, citing unnamed defense officials. The review is being conducted at the same time as the bipartisan Iraq Study Group is preparing recommendations for the future U.S. course in Iraq.

‘Reconciliation'

Yudhoyono called for a "triple-track solution" for Iraq. It would include a "national reconciliation" that leads to better self-governance, involvement of other nations to solve Iraq's political and security problems and an international postwar reconstruction effort. "The future disengagement of U.S. forces must be connected" to those conditions, Yudhoyono said. The buildup of local security forces would coincide with the withdrawal of American troops on a "proper timetable," he said.

Yudhoyono's remarks aren't out of line with Bush's own views and may closely resemble the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, said Richard C. Bush, director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "If I were the administration, I wouldn't take much discomfort from this," Bush said. "Members of Congress are saying a lot worse -- even from his own party. And for a president of a Muslim country to say this, that's not bad."

Party Divisions

Bush's fellow Republicans are increasingly critical of his handling of the war. Senator John McCain said yesterday that U.S. troops are "fighting and dying for a failed policy" in Iraq and must get enough reinforcements to ensure a military victory. McCain said that while deploying more troops to Iraq would put a "terrible strain" on the U.S. military, "there's only one thing worse, and that is defeat." "And we've been losing," the Arizona Republican said on ABC's This Week program.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said separately that a "clear" military victory in Iraq isn't "possible." Kissinger, who negotiated the end to the Vietnam War and who has advised Bush, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the U.S. must redefine its course in Iraq. "If you mean by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," he told the BBC.

International Conference

Kissinger, whose opinions have been sought by former Secretary of State James Baker III, head of the Iraqi Study Group, said an international conference should be held at "some early point" that would include Iraq's neighbors and permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Democrats, such as Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, who will become chairman of the Armed Services Committee in January, are advocating the U.S. begin a withdrawal of at least some troops in the first half of 2007.

The U.S. has about 141,000 military personnel in Iraq, and casualties have included almost 2,855 deaths and 21,678 injuries, according to Pentagon figures as of Nov. 17.