June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked about a report that Sunni insurgents have made a conditional offer to halt attacks in Iraq, said the U.S. won't set a timetable for withdrawing troops from the country.

The Associated Press today said 11 Sunni insurgent groups offered to stop attacks on U.S.-led military forces in Iraq if the Iraqi government and President George W. Bush set a two-year deadline for withdrawing all foreign troops.

Rumsfeld told reporters that, while he hadn't seen the report, ``the president's view has been and remains that a timetable is not something that is useful.'' A schedule for a pullout ``is a signal to the enemies that all you have to do is just wait and it's yours,'' he said.

``The goal is not to trade something off for something else to make somebody happy, the goal is to succeed,'' Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon press conference with Australian Defense Minister Brendan Nelson. ``And that means exactly what the president has said: It's condition-based.''

Nelson said Australia ``would strongly endorse that position and those remarks.''

AP, citing unidentified rebel and government officials, said the proposal was made by Sunni groups that operate north of Baghdad in the heavily Sunni provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala. While much of the fighting has been to the west of the capital, provinces to the north have become increasingly violent, the news service said.

Maliki's Response

The offer comes as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is reaching out to militant Sunnis and offering an amnesty plan to insurgent fighters.

Maliki said on national television today that the proposed Sunni timetable wasn't realistic because he couldn't be certain that Iraqi security forces would be ready to secure the country in two years, according to AP.

The Islamic Army in Iraq is not among the groups making the offer, AP said. Nor is the Muhammad Army or the Mujahedeen Shura Council, the umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to AP.

Members of the U.S. Congress rejected the reported offer. ``Thugs don't dictate American decisions,'' said Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who last week sponsored failed legislation that would have required almost all of the 127,000 soldiers now in Iraq to be withdrawn by July 1, 2007.

Kerry's response was relayed by spokesman David Wade in an e-mail.

Marshall

Georgia Democrat Jim Marshall, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said that he ``can't imagine we could accept such terms offered by people who probably can't get their own insurgents to comply, let alone insurgents from other groups.''

Representative Chris Shays, a Connecticut Republican, called it ``a good sign that some Sunnis are willing to come to the table, but frankly, we would not need as many of our troops in Iraq if insurgents weren't attacking Iraqis and Americans.''

Australia has 1,350 troops in and around Iraq. Nelson, asked whether these forces might be redeployed, said ``We are there until the job is done'' and ``the democratically elected Iraqi government is able to manage its own affairs.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Judy Mathewson in Washington at jmathewson@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 28, 2006 19:42 EDT