Pause means U.S. Iraq force likely larger for longer

By Andrew Gray

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When the next U.S. president is chosen, America may have about as many troops in Iraq as it did two years earlier, when voters tired of the war handed President George W. Bush's Republicans an election defeat.

That prospect appears more likely after Defense Secretary Robert Gates backed the idea of a pause in drawdowns after the current planned set of withdrawals ends this summer.

Bush ordered a surge of about 30,000 more troops to Iraq after his mid-term election loss in 2006, boosting the total to about 160,000. Under current plans, most -- but not all -- of those extra forces are due to have headed home by mid-July.

Gates had previously voiced the hope that drawdowns could proceed at the same pace in the second half of the year.

Analysts said his support for a pause showed top U.S. officials believed Iraq remained fragile despite substantial improvements in security last year.

"I think it reflects a good deal of uneasiness on the part of the Bush administration," said Ted Carpenter, vice president of the Cato Institute think tank.

Democrats attacked Gates' support for a pause, voiced on a visit to Baghdad on Monday, indicating that Iraq could return as a top issue on the election agenda.

The exact number of U.S. troops in Iraq late this year is hard to predict but could be around the 130,000 the United States had there before Bush ordered reinforcements.