Election may embolden Iraqis

WASHINGTON - Iraq's first free election in more than half a century may stiffen the resolve of ordinary Iraqis to fight in cooperation with American forces, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.

"I expect that level of violence and the insurgency to continue," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference. But at the same time, the voting may have marked a "tipping point" at which Iraqis who had been intimidated by the insurgents decide to step forward and join the army or other security force or provide useful information to U.S. forces, he said.

"I think it means that intelligence is going to improve, I think that it means that there will be more people who will be willing to provide information ... about people who were trying to intimidate them and control their cities, and over time" support for the government will grow, he said.

Rumsfeld also said U.S. forces are making good progress in training Iraqi security forces, but he cautioned that it was a gradual process.

"Nobody should expect that Iraqi security forces are going to come out of some pipeline," he said.

President Bush, meanwhile, brushed aside calls for a withdrawal strategy from Iraq.

"They ask me, 'Is there a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq?' Here's the answer to that: You don't set timetables," President Bush said in Great Falls, Mont., during an event to push his idea for Social Security reform.

"You don't want the enemy to say, 'We'll just wait them out,"' he said. "The timetable is as soon as possible, and it's going to be based on the willingness and the capacity of the Iraqi troops to fight the enemy."

Rumsfeld was fairly upbeat about the war, while his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, struck a more cautious tone on Capitol Hill, warning, "Iraq still faces a difficult road ahead to defeat the terrorist threat and achieve stability, much less freedom and democracy."

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Wolfowitz reiterated President Bush's stance that the administration would set no timetable for American forces to withdraw.

He said the U.S. military was making every effort to train Iraqi security forces, but he added that "much work clearly needs to be done" because the training "has encountered countless challenges and suffered numerous setbacks."

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the lawmakers that only about a third of Iraq's 136,000 trained security forces have enough training to engage in combat with insurgents across the country.

"About 40,000 can go anywhere in the country and take on any threat," he said. "That does not mean the rest of them are not useful, because in many parts of the country all you need are police on duty."

They spoke before a Congress that is increasingly under pressure - from a public that polls show is skeptical about the war - to answer the question of when the 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq will be withdrawn. Bush and military leaders believe a trained Iraqi security force is the key.

Despite the training going more slowly than anticipated, Wolfowitz and Myers said progress was being made. They noted that 2,500 Iraqis each day are signing up to join the security forces.

Still, some Democrats on the panel made clear they want U.S. troops to return immediately.