Top U.S. general defends Iraq war

Iraq is important to U.S. security worldwide because it is "the central front of al Qaida's global war of terror," David Petraeus, top U.S. general there said Wednesday while defending Iraq war. "We don't know what would happen if al Qaida had a sanctuary in Iraq from which they could presumably export violence, perhaps train others. We just don't know," Gen. David H. Petraeus told a news conference in Washington. He was clarifying an answer he gave to Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee a day earlier. Warner asked the general if U.S. military strategy in Iraq was making America safer. "Sir, I don't know, actually. I haven't sat down and sorted it out in my own mind. What I have focused on and what I'm riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the Multinational Force-Iraq," Petraeus told Warner on Tuesday. The general said during the hearings Monday and Tuesday that the U.S. military would be able to pull about 30,000 troops from Iraq by July 2008. That would get U.S. troop strength back to pre-"surge" levels. The so-called surge began in January when U.S. President George W. Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq as part of a campaign to secure Baghdad and its surrounding provinces.