US Senate Report: American Troops to Remain in Iraq, No Withdrawal on Deadline

A new US Senate report advises that a large contingent of American troops should remain in war-torn Iraq past the agreed withdrawal date set for the end of the year.

A new Senate Foreign Relations Committee report released on Tuesday advised that a large contingent of the US troops should remain in the war-struck Iraq, despite the date that was set for the troops' withdrawal at the end of the year.

According to the hearing report, American diplomats may not be safe in Iraq if the US military pulls out its remaining 50,000 troops there.

This comes as the United States prepares to deploy some 17,000 US diplomats and security contractors to the country over the next few months.

And now in order to protect these American envoys, Washington is proposing to keep a large number of US troops there indefinitely.

To make the extension of US troops presence in Iraq possible, Committee chairman Senator John Kerry said Tuesday that he is drawing up multi-year funding plans for a US civilian and semi military contingent in Iraq.

Meanwhile, both General Lloyd Austin, commander of the US military in Iraq, and US ambassador to Iraq James F. Jeffrey, warned Congress it had better be prepared to fund the new, largest of its kind, US civilian surge, which they cautioned could be necessary for years.

"We face a critical moment now in Iraq, where we will either step up to the plate, finish the job and build on the sacrifices made, or we will risk core US national security interests, and cede the field to al-Qaeda and other dangerous regional influences," Jeffrey told the Senate panel.

On his part, Austin stressed that in order to "erect stability" in Iraq, US troops should remain there "until 2012."

The new plan clearly violates a withdrawal agreement between Baghdad and Washington, and US President Barak Obama's pledge to pull out all US troops from Iraq by December 2011.

The war has also left more than 1,300,000 Iraqi civilians dead and some 4.7 million Iraqis displaced. Also, some 4,500 soldiers have been killed, not to mention that suicide rates have increased among the troops.