(Repeats to widen distribution) By David Alexander WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) - As President George W. Bush charted a new course for the Iraq war, there were calls to add troops and withdraw troops, but few voices counseled the U.S. leader to pull American forces out now. After weeks of study, Bush is due to announce on Wednesday a new Iraq strategy that a defense official said would increase U.S. troops in Iraq by about 20,000 with most going to violence-plagued Baghdad. The plan also calls for Iraqi forces to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's 18 provinces by November, he said. Politicians, experts and policymakers said a hasty U.S. withdrawal could provoke a bloodbath of ethnic strife, create the conditions for a broader Middle East war, destroy U.S. credibility in the region and hand al Qaeda a huge victory in the war on terrorism. "If the United States were to withdraw or redeploy from the battle, we would leave Iraq in shambles," Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham wrote in a letter to Bush, warning such moves "would in all probability trigger a full-blown civil war." Only a few groups rejected the idea that U.S. forces could not leave Iraq immediately without placing the people and the region in jeopardy. "We do not accept the notion that troops cannot be withdrawn immediately," said Sarah Sloan, a spokeswoman for the anti-war ANSWER Coalition. "Our view is that it is the U.S. military presence in Iraq that is causing the problem and when they leave that will resolve the problem." She pointed out the similarities with Vietnam, when a phased withdrawal actually resulted in an escalation of the conflict. But calls for immediate withdrawal were rare. Even passionate advocates of withdrawal generally spoke in terms of pulling out U.S. forces in months, not weeks or days, and some staunch critics of the Bush war effort said unwinding the U.S. commitment in Iraq in a prudent manner would require a year to 18 months. PHASED WITHDRAWAL? "The question is not should you or should you not withdraw. The question is how quickly," said Lawrence Korb, an expert on strategic studies at the Center for American Progress think tank. "I think people who want to get out talk about a phased withdrawal." He said that would take about 18 months. "That gives you time to get out in an orderly way," Korb said. "It gives the Iraqis a chance to adjust to us going and may give them the incentive to do what they need to do." Some proponents of withdrawal advocated a shorter time frame. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat and longtime opponent of the war, said he believed U.S. forces could pull out within three months once the president made the policy decision, but he dismissed the idea of immediate withdrawal. "The problem with ... talking about an immediate withdrawal is that it conjures up images of leaving the Iraqi people defenseless, and I don't think anybody's talking about that," said Kucinich, who is circulating a plan calling for U.S. troops to be replaced by an international security force. "I actually haven't heard anyone but a very few marginal voices saying that we should withdraw immediately," said Mary Habeck, an expert in strategic studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. "We're actually not losing, we're winning," she added. "Withdrawing now, though, will ensure a loss." Habeck said pulling out in the present circumstances would damage U.S. credibility in the region, hand al Qaeda a victory in the war on terrorism and set the stage for a broader regional conflict, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran and Syria all feeling compelled to intervene in their own interests. It could also trigger ethnic violence. "To withdraw now would create a bloodbath on the scale of Rwanda or Bosnia before we intervened there," she said. "And I don't know any good reason then, if that's going to create more of a bloodbath, why we should withdraw now."
