LEWISTON – U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said Saturday Iraqis need to start taking responsibility for their country’s security so American troops can start coming home.

A critic of President Bush’s recent troop surge, she would have preferred that troops deployed in Baghdad be sent west to Anbar province. Allied troops have made “very encouraging” military progress there aided lately by Sunnis in the region who joined with Americans in opposing al Qaeda forces, she said.

Baghdad, on the other hand, is bogged down in sectarian violence, demanding a political solution, not something accomplished by greater American military presence, she said.

Collins was attending the opening of an exhibit at the Museum L-A in the Bates Mill Complex when she met with a reporter from the Sun Journal.

U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, a Democrat, spent last week abroad, visiting Iraq for the first time during a trip that also took in other nations in the region. He has declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate and is expected to challenge Collins, who is serving her second term, for her seat next year.

The two candidates hold differing views on the Iraq war, which has emerged as the dominant campaign issue to date.

Allen has opposed U.S. involvement in the war, voting for legislation calling for benchmarks and timelines that would have started bringing troops home from Iraq as early as the end of this year. He also voted in 2002 against a resolution giving Bush authority to send troops into Iraq in the first place.

Collins, a member of the Armed Services Committee who has visited Iraq three times, hasn’t voted for a timeline or a scheduled withdrawal of troops, arguing that’s a decision best left to military commanders.

Instead, she has pushed for a “new mission” that would have lain the groundwork for the eventual return of American troops, she said.

That mission would have focused efforts on counter-terrorism, border security and the protection of U.S. forces, she said. It would have transitioned troops out of their primary combat role with a completion date of March 31, 2008.

“I would anticipate that …some of those brigades would start coming home before March, but some would be after. But I’m not going try to tell our military commanders what the right draw-down schedule is month by month,” she said.

She, along with a group of Republican and Democratic senators, also supports implementation of recommendations outlined in a report by the so-called Iraq Study Group.

“I think that offers the path forward,” she said.

Collins said her positions have been in step with Mainers who, according to recent polls, oppose by a large margin Bush’s handling of the war.

“I think a lot of mistakes have been made, tragic mistakes,” she said.

But she said she opposes an “immediate, precipitous and abrupt withdrawal.” Mainers she has met with recently also are concerned about the possible consequences of such a pullout, she said.

Experts have warned it could plunge the country into “chaos and cause massive bloodshed,” she said. Premature American withdrawal could open Iraq to invasion by neighboring countries and could erupt into a broader civil war, she said.