US could reduce troops in '06, Bush adviser says

WASHINGTON -- The United States may be ready to reduce troops in Iraq next year if Iraqis continue making progress at the current rate, President Bush's national security adviser said yesterday.

Stephen Hadley appeared on various talk shows yesterday to follow up on President Bush's speech on Iraq from the US Naval Academy last week. Hadley echoed Bush's statement that decisions about troop withdrawals would be made when US commanders felt Iraqis were ready to govern and protect themselves without US help, but said that could come as early as 2006.

''We think that if trends continue and we continue to make the progress and the Iraqis continue to make the progress we're making, we'll be in a position sometime next year for us to -- for the commanders on the ground to make their assessments," Hadley said on ''This Week" on ABC. ''And it may be at that point they will come to the president and say, we want to make some adjustments."

Hadley said the deaths of US troops in Iraq, now above 2,100, have been very difficult for the president. Still, he said, Bush expects insurgent attacks will increase in the next couple of weeks before Iraq's Dec. 15 elections.

Hadley was repeatedly asked on ''Fox News Sunday" whether Vice President Dick Cheney was wrong when he said in May that the insurgency was in its last throes, but he would not directly answer. ''Clearly, there's a lot more work to do," he said.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said he also thinks it is possible to bring US troops home in the next year or two, ''but it's going to be tough." He said one of the biggest mistakes the Bush administration made in fighting the war was to have too few troops in Iraq.

''We've made serious mistakes, and I'm frustrated by them, and most Americans are, too," McCain said on ''Meet the Press." ''But most Americans, I think, still appreciate that if we had some kind of premature withdrawal that the consequences would be very severe."

Senator Richard G. Lugar, an Indiana Republican and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said Bush has an uphill struggle to persuade Americans that he can be successful in Iraq.

Some Democrats criticized Bush for not being more aggressive about troop withdrawals.

Bush's former campaign rival, Senator John F. Kerry, said it's more dangerous for the mission to keep troops in Iraq in such large numbers.

The Massachusetts Democrat has called for Bush to bring home 20,000 troops if the December elections are successful.