US President George W. Bush said Wednesday that US troop will leave Iraq when Iraq is capable of defending itself.

"Our troops will come home when Iraqis are capable of defending themselves," Bush told a news conference. But he declined to give a timetable for bringing American forces home.

Bush made the remarks one day after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced plans to start bringing home his country's 3,000-strong contingent in Iraq.

Italy has the fourth-largest foreign contingent in Iraq after the United States, Britain and South Korea.

More than a dozen countries have withdrawn troops from Iraq over the past year.

Bush said he understood the desire of countries to bring their troops home. "What you're going to find is that countries will be willing, anxious" to leave - but only when Iraqi police and security forces are capable of taking over the work now done by coalition forces.

Bush denied that what the administration has called the "coalition of the willing" was crumbling.

(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2005)