The Bush administration, skeptical about long-term involvement in peacekeeping operations, may pull American troops from a multinational force along the quiet border between Israel and Egypt.
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has approached Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose nations signed a peace treaty in 1979 that has survived strains and conflict elsewhere in the Middle East.
Neither Sharon nor Mubarak apparently is keen on the idea of an American withdrawal, and a final decision has yet to be made by the administration, the Pentagon and State Department said Thursday.
The 865 Americans in Sinai, a vast, mountainous desert region between Israel and Egypt that was a battleground in several Arab-Israeli wars, serve in an observer force of about 1,850 soldiers from 11 countries at a cost to the United States of about $16 million a year. The troops have been there since 1982. Under the agreement that sent them there, Egypt and Israel would have to approve a U.S. withdrawal.
Rumsfeld approached Sharon during the prime minister's visit to Washington last month and Mubarak on his trip here in early April. The Israeli defense minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, could bring his government's formal reply when he comes to Washington next month for talks.
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