Departing Envoy to Iraq Says Time Is Running Out

By ALISSA J. RUBIN
New York Times

BAGHDAD, March 26 — The United States ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, offered a sober assessment of the outlook for the country at his final news conference today.

Although his comments were dressed in the carefully muted language of diplomacy, Mr. Khalilzad’s overall message was that Iraq faced profound troubles and that American patience for helping Iraq deal with those problems was dwindling.

In his opening statement, his most optimistic evaluation was only a little hopeful. “Success,” he said, is “still possible.”

But, he added, “to sustain U.S. support, things have to move at a certain pace.” And, he said, time is running out.

The United States House of Representatives voted last week to call for the withdrawal of American troops by the fall of 2008 and Democratic candidates for president in the next election are promising to drastically reduce the number of American troops in Iraq or to terminate their presence altogether.

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