It also signalled its acceptance of a recent US Senate amendment
designed to pave the way for a phased US military withdrawal from
the country.
The statement by Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, came in
response to a commentary published in The Washington Post by Joseph
Biden, the top Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
in which he said US forces will begin leaving Iraq next year "in
large numbers".
According to Biden, the US will remove about 50,000
servicemen from the country by the end of 2006, and "a significant
number" of the remaining 100,000 the year after.
The blueprint also calls for leaving only an unspecified "small
force" in Iraq to strike at
fighters, if necessary.
U-turn
Less than two weeks ago, McClellan criticised John Murtha, a Democratic
Representative, saying that his call for an immediate
withdrawal from Iraq, endorsed "the policy
positions of Michael Moore", a stridently anti-war Hollywood
filmmaker.
However,
 |
|
Senator Joseph Biden says 50,000
US troops will leave Iraq next year |
Biden's ideas, relayed first in a speech in New
York on 21 November, were more warmly received.
Even though President George Bush has never publicly issued
his own withdrawal plan and criticised calls for an early exit, the
White House said many of the ideas expressed by the senator were his
own.
In the statement, released under the headline "Senator
Biden adopts key portions of administration's plan for victory in
Iraq", McClellan said the Bush administration welcomed Biden's voice
in the debate.
Remarkably similar
"Today, Senator Biden described a plan remarkably similar to the
administration's plan to fight and win the war on terror," the
spokesman said.
He said that as Iraqi security forces gained strength and
experience, "we can lessen our troop presence in the country without
losing our capability to effectively defeat the terrorists".
McClellan said the White House now saw "a strong consensus"
building in Washington in favour of Bush's strategy in Iraq.
The Biden plan calls for preparatory work to the envisaged withdrawal to be done in the
first six months of next year. It
includes:
Forging a compromise among Iraqi factions, under which the
Sunnis must accept that they no longer rule Iraq, and Shia and
Kurds admit them into a power-sharing arrangement
Building Iraq's governing capacity
Transferring authority to Iraqi security forces
Establishing a contact group of the world's major powers to
become the Iraqi government's primary international interlocutor.
The White House statement also embraced a Senate amendment to a
defence authorisation bill overwhelmingly passed by the Senate on 15
November that called for the administration to make 2006 "a
period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" thereby
creating conditions "for the phased redeployment of United States
forces from Iraq".
Reprimand to Bush
The measure was largely seen as a reprimand to the Bush
administration, often accused of lacking a viable strategy in Iraq.
|
"Today, Senator Biden described a plan remarkably similar to the administration's plan to fight and win the war on terror"
Scott McClellan ,
White House spokesman |
But the White House again said the Senate was reading from
its own playbook.
"The fact is that the Senate amendment reiterates the
president's strategy in Iraq," the statement said.
The Bush administration has been steadily moving towards a
reduction of US troops in Iraq, and Condoleezza
Rice, Secretary of State, spoke last week of a reduction in the US presence for the first
time.
Her remarks contrasted sharply with her refusal last month to
tell a Senate panel whether US troops would be out in a decade,
acknowledging that anti-US attacks would continue "for quite a
long time".