Bush suspends summer troop pullouts from Iraq

[David]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Thursday announced a suspension of U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer to allow the military to reassess the security situation.

The announcement came amid a spike in violence in Iraq in recent weeks. Iraqi police said on Thursday that U.S. air strikes killed 10 people in the eastern Baghdad militia stronghold of Sadr City, where street fighting had eased after four days of clashes that have killed close to 90 people.

Bush endorsed a recommendation by his commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, to complete a limited withdrawal of combat troops by July but then impose a 45-day freeze of the total at about 140,000 troops before considering more possible cuts.

"I've told him he'll have all the time he needs," Bush said in Washington.

The Sadr City slum has since Sunday been the focal point of battles between black-masked Mehdi Army militiamen loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and security forces.

An extension of clashes that erupted in late March when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki cracked down on the militia in the southern city of Basra, the violence has colored a U.S. election-year debate over troop cuts by highlighting the fragility of recent security gains.

Iraqi police said two separate U.S. air strikes on Thursday morning had killed six people and wounded 10 in Sadr City. Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed two strikes on a suspected rocket site from a drone plane, but said he was unaware of any deaths.

Late on Wednesday, a U.S. helicopter fired two missiles at gunmen in the slum who attacked a joint U.S.-Iraqi security station, killing four, Stover said. Iraqi police and hospital officials said two of the four dead were young boys.

A roadside bomb also killed a U.S. soldier in central Baghdad overnight, raising the U.S. military death toll in Iraq to 20 for April, putting this month on track to be the deadliest for American soldiers since September.

Still, police, the U.S. military and residents said the streets of Sadr City, where most of the fighting this week has taken place, were calmer than in the past four days, when Sadr's militia battled the U.S. and Iraqi military.

NO GREEN ZONE HITS

"The situation is quieter. We are hearing sporadic gunfire and U.S. combat planes have been flying overhead, but the Iraqi military is not in the streets like past days," said Raad al-Humairi, a Sadr City resident.

"Some shops have opened. People buy what they need and then the shops close again."

For the first time in many days, the U.S. embassy said the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad had not sustained any rocket or mortar attacks from Sadr's militia.

On Thursday, U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a Sadr office in the town of Numaniya, south of Baghdad, seizing weapons and imposing a curfew, police said.

Under Bush's plan, the military will complete a withdrawal in July of some 20,000 extra combat troops deployed in the last year but then pause before deciding whether more can be pulled out.

Bush also said he was reducing the military combat tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to one year from 15 months.

The Iraqi military plans to lift a two-week-old vehicle blockade in Sadr City on Saturday.

The blockade has prevented cars from entering or leaving the eastern Baghdad district of two million people, leading to piled up rubbish, food and medicine shortages, and what residents have described as a sense of claustrophobia.

Despite a one-day Baghdad-wide car ban imposed on Wednesday, the fifth anniversary of the capital's fall to U.S. troops, over 20 people were killed in Sadr City clashes and the U.S. military announced the deaths of 5 more of its soldiers.

U.S. military deaths have averaged roughly one a day over the past six months, but that number has doubled in April.