Bush defends his Iraq policy

Washington, Oct 12 (UNI) Defending his Iraq policy President Bush said the United States would remain in the Asian nation as any premature withdrawal would embolden the terrorists.

''If we were to abandon that country before the Iraqis can defend their young democracy, the terrorists would take control of the nation and establish a new safe haven from which to launch new attacks on America,'' he told a press conference at the White House yesterday.

President Bush said, ''We can't tolerate a new terrorist state in the heart of West Asia, with large oil reserves that could be used to fund its radical ambitions, or used to inflict economic damage on the West.'' The President also dismissed a study published yesterday estimating that some 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the war. He said he did not consider the report credible, and that the methodology used was ''pretty well discredited.'' The study in the British journal, The Lancet, says about 600,000 of the 655,000 Iraqis died from violence, mostly gunfire.

Researchers also found a negligible increase in deaths from disease and other causes.

Mr Bush estimated in December that about 30,000 people have died as a result of the war. Asked if he still stood by his claim, the President said he ''stands by the figure that a lot of innocent people have died in the conflict.'' Later, at a Pentagon press conference, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Army General George Casey, top commander of coalition forces in Iraq, said violence and progress co-exist in the country's complex security environment, and that those who focused exclusively on day-to-day incidents were missing the from larger picture.

Gen Casey said most of the attacks were confined to only five of the country's 18 provinces of Iraq. Some 90 per cent of them are staged within a 30-mile radius of Baghdad. But other parts of the country experienced so little violence that the coalition had returned security responsibilities to provincial governments.

By the end of 2006, Mr Casey said, as many as seven Iraqi provinces will be transitioned back to full Iraqi control.

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