Petraeus to stop troop withdrawal in Iraq

A top US commander in Iraq has told Congress that he will stop troop withdrawals in July.

General David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee that despite an improvement in security in parts of Iraq "the situation in certain areas is still unsatisfactory and innumerable challenges remain."

"Moreover, as events in the past two weeks have reminded us, and as I have repeatedly cautioned, the progress made since last spring is fragile and reversible," he added.

He has recommended a 45-day halt in July to a series of troop withdrawals in order to judge developments on the ground and a subsequent assessment period to determine whether security is sufficient to bring more home.

An increase in violence - including the deaths of 11 American service personnel in the past 48 hours - has thrust Iraq back to the forefront of campaigns for the November presidential election.

Iraqi security gains after a year-old troop increase were fragile and he said in a report to deeply-divided lawmakers he would stop troop withdrawals in July.

The US is withdrawing about 20,000 of the troops that were sent to Iraq last year to bolster the American presence and create a more stable environment to help the Iraqi government work on political reconciliation objectives.

That could mean more than 130,000 US troops are still in Iraq at the end of President George Bush's term. Petraeus said he could not say how many troops would be there by the end of 2008.

The general is being questioned by the three presidential contenders - Republican John McCain and Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton - during a two-day progress report to Congress.

The US has 160,000 troops in the country but had planned to pull out five brigades or around 20,000 troops by mid-July in the expectation that the surge tactic would kill off sectarian violence.

But fighting between Shia factions in Baghdad and the southern oil city of Basra in recent weeks has undermined earlier security gains and pushed Iraq to the top of the US political agenda.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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