Reid: U.S. Troop reduction plan unacceptable

Senate Democratic leaders on Wednesday rejected the call by the top U.S. general in Iraq for a reduction of up to 30,000 U.S. troops in Iraq by next summer, saying it does not go far enough.\n“This is unacceptable to me, it’s unacceptable to the American people,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.\nReid said the recommendation by Gen. David Petraeus, expected to be embraced on Thursday by President Bush in a speech to the nation, “is neither a drawdown or a change in the mission that we need. His plan is just more of the same.”\n“I call on the Senate Republicans to not walk lockstep as they have with the president for years in this war. It’s time to change. It’s the president’s war. At this point it also appears clear it’s also the Senate Republicans’ war,” Reid told a Capitol Hill news conference.\nReid said that Democrats would offer amendments “to change the course of the war” when the Senate takes up a defense bill next week. He said they were reaching out to Republicans for help – especially those Republicans who had been calling for a change in September.\nBush held out the promise of such a change, but it is not materializing, Reid said.\nHe wasn’t specific about what amendments Democrats would offer, or whether they had the necessary 60 votes to prevail.\nSen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the troop buildup Bush announced in January had been intended to give the fledgling Iraqi government breathing room.\nBut that government remains dysfunctional and “the president is just going to stay the course indefinitely,” Levin said. He said that even Petraeus, in two days of congressional testimony, had acknowledged that the purpose of the military buildup, which the administration has called a “surge,” had not been accomplished.\nEarlier, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that stabilizing Iraq would be a lengthy process that won’t end when violence in that country – and U.S. troop strength – is reduced.