IRAQ: President George Bush said yesterday that US troops could be in Iraq after the end of his presidency in three years' time but he insisted there was no civil war.
Though Washington has long resisted setting a timetable for withdrawal, US officials have held out the prospect it would start soon and many of Mr Bush's Republican allies seemed keen to see progress before congressional elections in November.
Yet with Iraqi leaders and the US ambassador warning of the imminent risk of civil war, the 133,000 heavily armed US troops are seen by many as having a vital role in stemming violence.
Asked when US forces would finally pull out of Iraq, Mr Bush told a White House news conference: "That will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
As he addressed Americans' concerns on Iraq three years after the US invasion, however, Iraqis voiced new complaints about alleged killings of civilians by US troops. The military announced a second investigation in the space of a few days into accusations that soldiers shot women and children in their homes.
A US army dog-handler was convicted of abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison and faces more than eight years in jail.
The US-trained forces that Washington hopes will take on the bulk of security tasks, however, suffered one of their worst setbacks when suspected al-Qaeda guerrillas killed at least 22 people, mostly policemen, and freed over 30 prisoners from jail.
About 100 insurgents staged the dawn raid on two official buildings in Miqdadiya, northeast of Baghdad, officials said.
Ten of the attackers were also killed, one source said.
President Bush dismissed comments from former US-backed Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi that sectarian violence constituted civil war, saying it was a good sign that an attack a month ago on a Shia shrine in Samarra failed to spark all-out conflict.
"The way I look at it, the Iraqis took a look and decided not to give in to civil war," Mr Bush said.
Meanwhile, the US military said yesterday it was investigating Iraqi police allegations that its troops shot dead a family of 11, among them five children, in their home at Ishaqi, north of Baghdad, last week. Soldiers said they killed four, including a militant.
"Because of that discrepancy, we have opened an investigation," said spokesman Lieut Col Barry Johnson.
Police Col Farouq Hussein said at the time the victims were all shot in the head: "It's a clear and perfect crime."
The probe began after Time magazine published allegations that US Marines killed 15 civilians in another town last year. A criminal inquiry into those deaths was launched last week.
Townspeople interviewed yesterday said troops went on a rampage after a marine was killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, west of Baghdad, in November. The witnesses rejected an original US account that the 15 also died in the bomb blast - a version also now dismissed by US commanders.
"In this house, the whole family was killed, including children," said one resident, who declined to be named.
Accusations that US soldiers often kill civilians and that little disciplinary action has resulted in the few cases investigated have aroused Iraqi anger since the invasion.
"The occupying forces have started to use savage methods," Sunni Arab politician Hussein al-Falluji said. "The Haditha incident tells us that US patience has come to an end."