Iraqis warn of civil war if U.S. troops withdraw

By Waleed Ibrahim and Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi leaders warned on Monday that an early U.S. troop withdrawal could tip the country into all-out civil war after The New York Times said debate was growing in the White House over a gradual draw-down of forces.

The stark comments from politicians across the sectarian divide followed a wave of weekend bombings and shootings in Iraq that killed 250 people.

"This could produce a civil war, partition of the country and a regional war. We might see the country collapse," Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd, told a news conference when asked about the newspaper report.

The Times cited U.S. administration officials and consultants as saying the White House feared the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President George W. Bush's Iraq strategy were "collapsing around them."

It said debate was intensifying over whether Bush should try to prevent more Republican defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual troop pull-out from high-casualty areas.

The White House denied it was considering a troop withdrawal based on a "political judgment saying there was no debate over an immediate draw-down.

"The president has said many times, that as conditions required and merit, that there will be, in fact, withdrawals and also a pulling back from areas of Baghdad and so on," said spokesman Tony Snow.

"But the idea of trying to make a political judgment rather than a military judgment about how to have forces in the field is simply not true."