Topeka ? U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., was in Topeka on Wednesday, and criticized as inadequate the partial troop drawdown endorsed by President Bush.

According to news reports, Bush has said he will implement a recommendation from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, to decrease the number of U.S. troops by 30,000 by next summer. That would bring the level down to about the same number of troops that were there before Bush ordered a surge earlier this year.

Hoyer said the Petraeus recommendation “from my perspective is stay the course,” and could bog down the United States in Iraq for a decade. He said Bush’s surge of troops has failed to secure the situation enough for Iraqis to reach political solutions.

He said if the United States gave the Iraqis a timetable on withdrawing, it would prompt warring Iraqi groups to reach political agreements.

Democrats in Congress, he said, have been frustrated that they haven’t changed the course of the war but lack the votes to overcome presidential vetoes.

Democrats will continue to “try to get our troops re-deployed,” Hoyer said.