Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said here on Thursday that the United States should not withdraw from Iraq until it completes the reformation of Iraqi security forces.

"The United States administration clearly has to plan for an organized ... timetable for withdrawal," Hashemi told a Washington think tank. "A timetable can only be linked to serious efforts to reform the Iraqi military and security forces," he said.

"If the US withdrew without this effort," Hashemi said "the militia and militia-infiltrated government forces will escalate their massacre of innocent people. There will be a security vacuum. This will not lead to stability but further chaos."

"The United States has (a) duty to reform the Iraqi government forces because it was the United States forces which mistakenly dissolved the previous Iraqi military and security forces -- so there was, more or less, an obligation -- and created this security void now being filled with ... sectarian militias, terrorists and organized crime gangs," Hashemi said.

US President George W. Bush met with Hashemi at the White House on Tuesday, having reiterated to help Iraq's government to deal with extremists and terrorists.

Prior to his meeting with Hashemi, a Sunni leader of Iraq, Bush had met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and top Iraqi Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim since the end of November.     

(Xinhua News Agency December 15, 2006)