WASHINGTON, Nov 30: Former US president Bill Clinton said on Thursday that setting a timetable to pull US troops out of Iraq would reduce US leverage on neighbouring countries and on Iraqi leaders to help quell the violence.

Speaking on CNN television from India, Clinton said he was more worried about the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and suggested that some US troops in Iraq should be moved there.

But he said the United States needed to keep pressure on all actors in Iraq “to keep the whole thing from falling apart.

“I think that we probably shouldn't set a definite timetable right now, because we don't want to lose all the leverage we have to get others in the surrounding countries to work with us, and to get the Iraqi political forces to try to get more and more people to choose politics over violence,” Clinton said.

“That's a fundamental problem in Iraq now, that there are a lot of people who believe they can get what they want at the end of the gun, better than they can through deliberations in the political system.

“And we've got to find a way, if we can, to minimise that, to keep the whole thing from falling apart,” he said.

Clinton told CNN he had met for several hours with the Iraq Study Group, and that he had briefed Bush on his views ahead of that meeting.

He acknowledged that “some redeployment” of US forces in Iraq was necessary to relieve pressure on the military and to meet shifting policy goals.

But he also said he hoped there would be some reinforcement of US forces in Afghanistan, where attacks by the Taliban militia have surged five years after a US-led coalition ejected the hard-line Muslim group from political power.

“I'm worried about the inroads that have been made by the Taliban trying to come back and what that might mean for greater freedom of movement for Al Qaeda ... We can't separate entirely our challenges in Iraq from our challenges in Afghanistan,” he added.

Clinton also suggested that a civil war was already underway in Iraq, citing the turn by political groups in the country to violence to achieve their goals.

“There are more and more people who think that they can get what they want by shooting or throwing up these roadside bombs, rather than engaging in politics,” he said.—AFP