WASHINGTON — American forces won't leave Iraq when a new interim government takes charge from the U.S. military occupation next year, President Bush said Monday. "We're staying," he pledged.
Pointing to the new plan to accelerate Iraq's political transition, Bush said terrorists will not achieve their goal of driving the United States out of Iraq before a new leadership takes hold and brings stability. "We will succeed," the president said.
Bush met in the Oval Office with five women who hold positions of influence in Iraq.
Songul Chapouk, founder of the Iraqi Women's Organization in Kirkuk, pleaded with him not to withdraw U.S. troops. "We need them because we have open borders, and we don't have an army, and we don't have trained policemen, so we need them at this time," she said.
Bush had an immediate answer. "I assured these five women that America wasn't leaving. When they hear me say we're staying, that means we're staying."
More than 400 U.S. troops have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq. The rising casualties have put pressure on Bush to scale down U.S. forces as he heads into a re-election fight. Under a troop rotation plan announced last week, the overall number of American troops in Iraq will fall to 105,000 by May from the current 130,000.
Bush declined to say whether the U.S.-pushed establishment of an interim Iraqi government was part of a U.S. exit strategy. "The politics will go forward," he said. "The political process is moving on. The Iraqi people are plenty capable of governing themselves."
But he said there was good reason for U.S. troops to remain.
"We fully recognize that Iraq has become a new front on the war on terror and that there are disgruntled Baathists as well as Fedayeen fighters and Mujahedin types and al-Qaida types that want to test the will of the civilized world there," the president said. "And we will work with Iraqis to bring people to justice."
He said there were many brave Iraqi soldiers and police who were "chasing down these terrorists, and they're paying a price for it."
Asked if a surge in terrorist incidents around the world pointed to a reconstitution of al-Qaida, Bush said, "We're seeing the nature of al-Qaida. They'll kill innocent people anywhere, anytime. That's just the way they are. They have no regard for human life. They claim they're religious people, but they're not."
The blueprint for an accelerated transition to Iraqi self-rule drew praise from German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, whose government opposed the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein and has refused any major commitment of financial or military involvement in postwar Iraq.
"This is a very important step forward," Fischer said after meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell at the State Department. "I think this could be very helpful."
He said Germany would do what it could to contribute "to these positive developments," and said it would be helpful if the United Nations could play a role in Iraq.
Powell said he had conferred by telephone with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "We want the U.N. to play a role, and it is a part of our plan for moving forward," he said.
Powell said he thought Annan was eager to follow through.