EXCLUSIVE: Bush Says Petraeus' Timeline for Troop Drawdown Not Open-Ended

April 11, 2008— -- President Bush today dialed back on what appeared to be an open-ended time frame for Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of multinational forces in Iraq, to assess troop needs once the surge is complete at the end of July.

"Sometimes people read what they want to in the president's words," Bush said in an exclusive interview with ABC's senior White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "My statement was, in essence, this: If Gen. Petraeus needs 45 days, he'll have 45 days."

Watch Martha Raddatz's interview with the president tonight on "World News With Charles Gibson" at 6:30 ET.

Thursday, in a speech on Iraq at the White House, Bush said Petraeus could "have all the time he needs."

Critics of the war, including both Democratic candidates, Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., took that statement as saying the president would not be drawing down forces in Iraq anytime soon.

"So you're not saying it would be just 45 days, or will it go beyond 45 days. You just don't know," Raddatz asked the president outside his office at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.

"I don't know," Bush replied. "But on the other hand, I did say that my hope is that conditions will enable us to continue return on success."

Bush conceded earlier that before the surge began last year, he was pessimistic about the way the war in Iraq was going.

"How worried were you?" Raddatz asked.

"I was worried. Look, I'm worried any time it looks like we're going to fail in Iraq," Bush said.

During that time in 2006, when many were saying Iraq was in a full-blown civil war, Bush kept his rhetoric upbeat, saying in speeches that We're winning" and "We have a plan for victory."

Raddatz asked the president about that, and the president insisted he did it to keep up troop morale.

"That's as much to try and bolster the spirits of the people in the field as well -- you can't have the commander in chief say to a bunch of kids who are sacrificing that either it's not worth it or you're losing. What does that do for morale?" Bush said.

The president said that since the surge, Iraq is on a course for political reconciliation, part of what the surge was supposed to accomplish. "I think you'll find that the government is functioning a lot better than it was a year ago. They had passed major laws. Yes, there needs to be an oil law, but they are sharing oil revenues. … They have made progress. And is there more to be done? You bet there's more to be done."