- Senior Bush administration officials yesterday called
for American forces to leave Iraq within months in the face of political
and financial constraints on a lengthy occupation.
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- White House and Pentagon officials played down what America
could or should try to achieve before handing over power to a local administration.
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- In contrast, before the war, the State Department sent
Congress a plan for rebuilding Iraq setting deadlines of six and 12 months
for such tasks as providing basic health care to all Iraqis, and repairing
6,000 schools. More loftily, the State Department promised to move Iraq
towards "self-managed economic prosperity" and the rule of law.
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- In February, President Bush <http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/02/27/wbush27.xml>appeared
to endorse such ambitious visions, citing the precedent of post-war Germany
and Japan, when American troops left behind "lasting institutions
of freedom".
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- Though American officials insisted they remain committed
to rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, they told the Washington Post that
the world should expect months, and not years, of nation-building.
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- One senior official said: "The president's goal
is to leave Iraq on the road to prosperity and security and democracy -
or at least give them a fighting chance of it."
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- Pentagon officials focused on the costs of post-war reconstruction,
challenging assumptions that tens of billions of dollars should be spent
on repairs and peacekeeping.
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- Defence officials told the Post that it would not take
much to bring infrastructure back to pre-war levels, noting that Iraqis
were used to power cuts and imperfect water supplies.
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- One unnamed senior defence official questioned estimates
that 75,000 troops would be needed to maintain law and order, suggesting
that US-allied Kurdish fighters could move south towards Baghdad.
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- White House officials focused on the need to avoid a
lengthy occupation that could inflame the Arab world. "It's not because
we're doing it on the cheap, but because we don't want to have an overbearing
presence there," one said.
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