President Barack Obama says he won't consider speeding up the troop pullout from Iraq even though security has improved and violence has decreased, AP reported. «I think the plan that we put forward in Iraq is the right one» because it calls for «a very gradual withdrawal through the national elections in Iraq,» he said in an interviewed aired Sunday on CBS television's «Face the Nation.» While he didn't dispute the notion of military progress, Obama said there's plenty to do on the political side to resolve differences between the various sectarian groups. Iraq's security forces also need to be trained, he added. «I'm confident that we're moving in the right direction. But Iraq is not yet completed. We still have a lot of work to do,» the president said of the war that's winding down after six hard-fought years. Separately, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told «Fox News Sunday» that he hasn't seen «anything at this point that would lead me to think that there will be a need to change the timeline.» The plan that Obama announced last month calls for withdrawing combat troops by the end of August 2010. After the drawdown, a large force of as many as 50,000 troops _ about one-third of what is there now _ will remain with a new, noncombat mission: train Iraqis, protect U.S. assets and personnel and conduct anti-terror operations.
