By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON – The United States reacted warily Monday to word that Syria will pull back its troops to the eastern part of Lebanon and demanded that it withdraw its forces “completely and immediately.”  The announcement of a phased troop pullback was denounced by White House spokesman Scott McClellan as “a half measure.” The presidents of Syria and Lebanon announced Monday that the Syrian troops would be pulled back to eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley by March 31. No timetable was announced for a full pullout.

“We stand with the Lebanese people and the Lebanese people, I think, are speaking very clearly. They want a future that is sovereign, independent and free from outside influence and intimidation,” McClellan said.

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s announcement over the weekend of a phased troop withdrawal “did not go far enough,” McClellan told reporters. “Syria needs to withdraw completely and immediately from Lebanon territory.”

At the State Department, spokesman Adam Ereli said that until Syrian forces and intelligence agents are out of Lebanon, a full withdrawal under the terms of a U.N. Security Council resolution “is not respected.”

In September, the Security Council passed Resolution 1559, drafted by the United States and France, calling on Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, stop influencing politics in the country and allow Lebanon to hold presidential elections as scheduled.

Syria’s ambassador to the United States said in Washington Monday that Damascus will withdraw its troops to Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley in a few weeks. A full troop withdrawal will come in “less than two or three months,” ambassador Imad Moustapha told CNN.

“We will withdraw all our troops” from Lebanon, to “Syria proper,” he said.

Syria has had troops in Lebanon since 1976, when they were sent as peacekeepers during that country’s 1975-1990 civil war. When the war ended, the troops remained while Syria dominated Lebanon’s politics.

“We entered Lebanon to end a bloody civil war,” Moustapha said. “Now we are withdrawing in compliance with international law. We are giving a good example to the rest of the Middle East.”

Also on Monday, New Mexico’s Gov. Bill Richardson, a prominent Democrat often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, said Syria’s promise to lower the profile of its 14,000 troops in Lebanon was a “very significant” result of U.S. pressure.

“I believe the Bush administration deserves credit for putting pressure and saying that authoritarian regimes have to go,” Richardson said on NBC’s “Today” show. President Bush (news – web sites)’s stated mission of spreading democracy around the world “is working, whether it’s by design or by accident,” Richardson said.

Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (news – web sites) and energy secretary under President Clinton (news – web sites), said that in the past, “U.S. policy has winked at Saudi Arabia and Egypt” because of America’s stakes in the region, such as energy interests and military bases.

“We kind of said ‘OK, it’s all right not to be democratic,’ ” Richardson said.

“The president, in talking about freedom and democracy, is sparking a wave of very positive democratic sentiment that might help us override both Islamic fundamentalism that has formed in that region and also some of the hatred for our policy of invading Iraq (news – web sites),” he said.