US to pull out of Iraq if surge fails (Agence France-Presse)

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The Pentagon is preparing a plan for a phased pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq in case the "surge" fails or is undercut by congress.

Agence France-Presse

March 13, 2007 -- The Pentagon is preparing a plan for a phased pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq in case the "surge" fails or is undercut by congress.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe cited Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, saying it would be irresponsible for the United States to not have considered a fallback plan if the current escalation in troop levels failed to achieve the goal of quelling violence in the country.

"Gates addressed this last week, that it would be negligent not to be thinking about various possible outcomes for the future," he said.

Mr. Gates and the U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, "have addressed this repeatedly. We're focused on the current plan that is just getting started. It will take several months before we are able to assess results," he said.

Speaking from Guatemala, where President George W. Bush was on the latest stop of his Latin America tour, Mr. Johndroe was commenting on a report in the Los Angeles Times that the United States had developed an alternative pullout strategy based in part on the U.S. experience in El Salvador in the 1980s.