Rumsfeld Says U.S. Won't Set Iraq Exit as AP Cites Sunni Offer

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Rumsfeld Says U.S. Won't Set Iraq Exit as AP Cites Sunni Offer

June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked about a report that Sunni insurgents have made a conditional offer to halt attacks in Iraq, said the U.S. won't set a timetable for withdrawing troops from the country.

The Associated Press today said 11 Sunni insurgent groups offered to stop attacks on U.S.-led military forces in Iraq if the Iraqi government and President George W. Bush set a two-year deadline for withdrawing all foreign troops.

Rumsfeld told reporters that while he hadn't seen the report, ``the president's view has been and remains that a timetable is not something that is useful.'' A schedule for a pullout ``is a signal to the enemies that all you have to do is just wait and it's yours,'' he said.

``The goal is not to trade something off for something else to make somebody happy, the goal is to succeed,'' Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon press conference with Australian Defense Minister Brendan Nelson. ``And that means exactly what the president has said: It's condition-based.''