WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States on Monday refused to set a timetable for the withdrawal of its 150,000 troops out of Iraq after Iraq held its nationwide election on Sunday.

    "First of all, when you talks about withdrawing troops or timetable, the president looks to the commanders on the ground to make determination about what our force configuration should look like," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said at a news briefing.

    "But in terms of setting timetables, the president has previously talked about timetables send the wrong message to the terrorists because all the terrorists have to do is wait, and thenthey can plan and coordinate and prepare attacks around those timetables," McClellan said.

    The spokesman said that the timetable is based on completing the mission in Iraq and part of the completing the mission is training and equipping Iraqi security forces and making sure that they have the command structure so that they are fully ready to defend Iraq.

    US President George W. Bush has said that US troops will stay in Iraq until the mission is completed, despite calls by the Democrats to withdraw the US troops out of Iraq not that the election is over.

    Iraq held its first post-Saddam Hussein election on Sunday and Bush has called the election as "a resounding success." Enditem