White house Casey Iraq troop plan just one option

WASHINGTON, June 26 (Reuters) The White House confirmed today that the top US military commander in Iraq has drafted a plan for US troop cuts there, but said the plan was just one option being considered and was not set in stone.

''General (George) Casey is assigned the business of making a lot of plans and this is one of the plans that is under consideration,'' White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

''But for anybody who thinks that this is engraved in stone, it is not,'' he said, adding that troop cuts would be determined by conditions on the ground.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that Casey had drafted a plan that would first reduce US troops in Iraq in September and then cut the number of combat brigades to five or six from the current level of 14 by the end of 2007.

There are currently nearly 130,000 US troops in Iraq.

Democratic critics of the president reacted angrily, saying over the weekend that the Casey plan appeared similar to their calls for the administration to draw up a timetable for troop withdrawal, yet when they urged this they were accused of wanting to ''cut and run'' by Republicans.

Bush, facing waning support over the past year for the Iraq war, has repeatedly said that troop withdrawals will take place as Iraqi security forces become more able to assume control.

''In a time of war there is not a single plan, a monotholithic plan. Furthermore, any of those proposals always, as the cliche goes, never survive first contact with the enemy,'' Snow said.

REUTERS SHR RS2001