White House cautions on 30,000-troops figure

The White House, ahead of the president’s Thursday night speech on the situation in Iraq, cautioned that the number of U.S. soldiers withdrawn by next summer could be lower than the 30,000-troop figure widely reported in the media this week.

{mosads} “Somebody made a back-of-the-envelope calculation and put a number, 30,000, out there,” a senior administration official told reporters hours before the speech. “As you know, we have tried to make clear to people in this room and outside this room that no one in the administration has ever used that number. And we cautioned against using that number.”

White House officials said the administration does not want to make predictions “beyond what you can do with reliability.” That means that Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will come back in March “and give a fresh assessment on how we’re doing on the ground, what they can foresee, because we’re six months further down the road at that point, and what the situation will bear.

“So we expect, at that point in March, to hear about additional forces coming home,” the official said.

The White House added that the numbers are shifting, with a senior official pointing out that the situation on the ground could change.

“For example, if we take 10,000 more detainees in the next six months, guess what? Petraeus is going to request 2,000 more MPs to secure the 10,000 more detainees,” that official stated.

The White House views Bush’s speech as “a key moment.”

“This is a time when we believe the American public is very focused on our policy in Iraq and our issue,” the White House official said, adding that the president will accept Petraeus’s recommendations with regard to the direction in Iraq.