Rice: U.S. pressing Iraq on government

~ The secretary of state says the U.S. could significantly draw down troops if Iraqis assume more control.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. is pushing Iraqi leaders to step up the pace in forming a unity government, hoping insurgents do not take advantage of the political uncertainty, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

Echoing military commanders, Rice also said that if Iraqis assume greater control of their country's security, then the U.S. could significantly draw down troops this year.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who met with Iraqi leaders last week in his role as top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, criticized Rice's "excuses" for lack of progress. Speaking after Rice on "Fox News Sunday," he urged President Bush to make it clear to Iraqis that U.S. troops will stay only if Iraqis achieve a political compromise.

Rice said Iraqis were moving "more slowly than we would hope. And we've pressed that they need to expedite because of the potential for a political vacuum."

Negotiations to form a government in Baghdad are now in the third month. Iraqi leaders have predicted a government will be offered to parliament for approval within two months.

"I think they're doing a remarkable job," Rice told "Late Edition" on CNN. "The only reason that people are pressing them to get it done more quickly is that there is a violent insurgency that might try to take advantage of the period of time in which there isn't a government."

Rice said Iraqi leaders are dealing with "some of the most sensitive and existential issues for the new Iraq," including rules for the government and appointments for specific posts.

"This is the first time that Shia, Sunnis and Kurds have really had a chance to sit down and talk to each other about these very difficult issues," she said.

Levin, D-Mich., who met with Iraqi leaders last week in his role as top Democratic on the Armed Services Committee, said Bush should make it clear to the Iraqis that troops are going to continue to be there only if they work out a political compromise. That is a message, Levin said, that Iraqi leaders have not yet received.

"Instead, they get the kind of excuses that we just heard as to how complicated it is, how difficult it is, that constitutions and cabinet selections take time," said Levin, who appeared on "Fox News Sunday" after Rice.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said U.S. troops are "a crutch" for Iraq and that their presence continues to fuel the insurgency.

"The best way to remove that crutch is to see a substantial withdrawal of American troops. That's what I'm for," Kennedy said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Rice said she thinks it is "entirely probable that we will see a significant drawdown of American forces over the next year."

"It's all dependent on events on the ground," she told NBC's "Meet the Press."

U.S. officials are reluctant to commit themselves to a withdrawal of some of the 133,000 American troops now in Iraq. Military officials have expressed hope they can reduce the number below 100,000 by year's end.

Bush has said a future U.S. president and a future Iraqi government will decide when all troops leave Iraq.

Rice noted that talk of a significant reduction of U.S. forces over the next year "is because Iraqi forces are taking and holding territory now."

With the war entering its fourth year, Rice said people should look at the positive direction of events in the Middle East rather than whether the region was more or less stable than when the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003.

"We had a false stability. It is not as if we disturbed a placid and functioning Middle East in which our security interests were not at risk," she said.

Rice said that ousted Saddam Hussein's apparent lack of involvement in al-Qaida's attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, is only part of a "very narrow definition" of what caused the strikes on the U.S.

"If you think that what caused Sept. 11 was that the people who flew airplanes in caused Sept. 11, then, no, Iraq had no relationship," she said.

"But if you think that this was a broader problem of an ideology of hatred, of terrorism becoming an acceptable means in places where there was a freedom deficit and where there was no possibility for legitimate political discourse, then you realize that you have to have a different kind of Middle East," she said, "and a different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein at the middle of it is unacceptable."