Rumsfeld says he can't promise significant withdrawal this year

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday that he couldn't promise that a significant number of U.S. forces would return from Iraq by year's end.
Pressed by lawmakers, the Pentagon chief said he hoped for a large American troop withdrawal this year but could not assure them that would occur. "No. No one can," Rumsfeld told a Senate committee. Still, he said. "It's obviously our desire and the desire of the troops and the desire of the Iraqi people."
Testifying alongside Rumsfeld, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said troops cannot withdraw completely from any of Iraq's 18 provinces within the next three months, even though most are considered calm.
On the other side of Capitol Hill, Rep. John Murtha said a Pentagon war crimes investigation will show Marines killed more than a dozen innocent Iraqis civilians "in cold blood" in the town of Haditha.
Officials have said 15 Iraqis, eight insurgents and a U.S. Marine were killed during a Nov. 19 firefight that began when a roadside bomb detonated next to a joint Iraqi-U.S. squad patrolling Haditha.
"Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And that's what the report is going to tell," Murtha, D-Pa., told a news conference at which he was making the point that U.S. forces are "overstretched and overstressed" by the war.
The highly decorated former Marine, now a leading House critic of the Iraq war, renewed his appeal for a quick pullout from Iraq, saying the situation had deteriorated there in the six months since he introduced a resolution that would have ended U.S. military presence.
Since the March 2003 invasion, U.S. forces have dropped from a high of 160,000 during Iraqi elections to about 132,000.
More than 2,400 American soldiers have died in Iraq. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service estimates the conflict has cost $261 billion so far.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.