Congressman Rick Larsen called for a partial pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq this week, calling Pres. Bush’s plan to deploy 21,500 more soldiers to Iraq “a step in the wrong direction.”

Larsen said he wants an immediate withdrawal of soldiers who are not needed to help the Iraqi military fight al-Qaida or protect Iraq’s borders. The 2nd District Democrat also said U.S. troops should not be kept in the country to continue the training of Iraqi military forces, and said the partial pullout should be unconditional.

“We should not wait for the Iraqis to complete their training of their military forces. I think we’ve waited long enough,” said Larsen, (D-Lake Stevens).

“In the past I’ve said wait till we finish the training,” Larsen added. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was the president’s call to escalate the war in Iraq and to really get away from letting the Iraqis know they have to take the lead on their own security.”

Bush’s plan to escalate the war in Iraq is facing growing opposition from both political parties.

Sen. John Warner, the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, voiced doubts about the president’s plan Monday. The Virginia Republican said he was co-sponsoring a resolution opposing the deployment of 21,500 additional troops to Iraq.

In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll this week, 65 percent of those polled said Bush should drop his plan to send more troops to Iraq if Congress passes a resolution opposing the surge.

Larsen said the last election showed the country wants a change of course in Iraq, but Bush has rejected a lot of good ideas, some from the Center for American Progress, others from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

“He has missed the message of this last election, and by escalating this war in Iraq I think he’s going to make Iraq worse and not better,” Larsen said.

“What the president is doing is continuing to give our military the unattainable goal of delivering a democracy in a box to Iraq,” he said. “I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask our military to keep a lid on a civil war.”

Larsen didn’t suggest a timeline, and did not say how many troops should remain in Iraq after the partial pullout.

“We do not need 132,000 in U.S. military in Iraq to fight the counterinsurgency; most of those folks are keeping a lid on the civil war,” Larsen said, adding that the country’s resources should be used elsewhere to fight the global war on terrorism.

“Frankly, for me, America has a choice: We can fight terrorists and save Afghanistan from falling back into the hands of the Taliban, or we can fight Iraq’s civil war for them,” Larsen said.

Larsen, a member of the House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee, voted against the resolution that authorized war against Iraq.

This week, he proposed a six-step strategy to counter Pres. Bush’s plan to send more soldiers to Iraq.

Larsen said the U.S. should wrap up its effort to train and equip the Iraqi military in fighting the Iraqi-based insurgency, and embed special forces soldiers with Iraqi units to fight off al-Qaida in Iraq and secure the country’s borders. The U.S. should also begin a partial pullout of U.S. forces, invest in a “diplomatic surge” that would include talks with Syria and Iran, convene an international peace conference to end the civil war in Iraq, and make it easier for Iraqis to get visas to come to the U.S.

He also said that a partial pullout may not automatically mean those troops would be brought home.

“Folks might be able to come home, but we have places in the world where we need U.S. troops to fight terrorists. And I’m just as willing to send them there than to bring them home,” Larsen said.

Brian Kelly can be reached at 221-5300 or bkelly@southwhidbeyrecord.com.