SEOUL, South Korea — President Bush said he sees little distance between himself and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on how to approach troop reductions in Iraq, dismissing the suggestion that al-Maliki had effectively endorsed Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw all U.S. combat brigades in 16 months.
“I talk to him all the time, and that’s not what I heard,” Bush said Monday night in an interview with The Washington Post aboard Air Force One on the start of a trip to Asia. “I heard a man who wants to work with the United States to come up with a rational way to have the United States withdraw combat troops depending upon conditions on the ground, that’s all.”
The president received a mixed reception here, with hundreds lining his motorcade route to greet his arrival, and tens of thousands gathered at Seoul’s City Hall for a prayer service in support of his visit. But wire services reported that an estimated 20,000 protesters clashed with police at a different gathering called to oppose Bush’s visit. Police used water cannons to disperse the protesters and arrested roughly 70, wire services reported.
In his remarks aboard Air Force One, Bush was seeking to play down recent comments by al-Maliki, delivered in German magazine Der Spiegel last month, that Obama’s plan to withdraw one combat brigade a month seemed reasonable, and his government spokesman said Iraqis hoped all American combat troops could be out by the end of 2010.
Bush said he did not see the prime minister’s interview but suggested he still believes al-Maliki does not want a fixed timetable for U.S. withdrawal. In their own discussions, he said, al-Maliki “understands the need to set aspirational goals and to make sure the conditions on the ground warrant whatever aspirational goal there is.”
