Top US general sees 'good scrub' of Iraq policy

WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) US military leaders are preparing to recommend changes in Iraq strategy but the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will not have a direct impact, the Pentagon's top general said today.

''We have to give ourselves a good honest scrub about what is working and what is not working, what are the impediments to progress and what should we change about the way we are doing it to make sure that we get to the objective that we set for ourselves,'' Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on the CBS ''Early Show.'' Pace spoke two days after US President George W Bush announced Rumsfeld's departure following a Democratic victory over Bush's Republican Party in congressional elections seen as a repudiation of the administration's Iraq war policy.

''The change in leadership itself will not have a direct impact on what we do or don't do in Iraq,'' Pace said. ''We continuously review what's going right, what's going wrong, what needs to change.'' Pace declined to discuss potential changes, but said he and other leading officers including Gen. George Casey -- the top commander in Iraq -- and Gen. John Abizaid, head of US Central Command, were working on the review.

''We're making our recommendations, we're having our dialogue and we'll make the changes that are needed to get ourselves more focused on the correct objectives,'' he said.

Pace said that with the nomination of former CIA director Robert Gates to succeed Rumsfeld, the Defense Department would pass from ''very strong hands to very strong hands.'' REUTERS SP PM1941