US to withdraw troops in case of civil war in Iraq

A senior aide of President Bush says US will withdraw its troops from Iraq if the country descends into a civil war.

The United States would withdraw its troops from Iraq if the country descended into a civil war, a senior aide of President George W Bush has said.

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This is part of the contingency planning that the Bush administration has begun to deal with, though it still insists that Iraq is a long way from civil war, the aide has been quoted as saying by the Newsweek magazine in its upcoming issue.

"If there is a full-blown civil war, the president isn't going to allow our forces to be caught in the crossfire," he said.

The White House would need no prompting from Congress to get troops out "if the Iraqi government broke down completely along sectarian lines."