Washington – President Bush will tell a nation weary of war tonight that he is sending 21,500 more Americans to Iraq, arguing it has been a mistake not to commit larger numbers of U.S and Iraqi troops to stabilize the increasingly violent, shattered country. Democrats pledged to confront Bush over the troop escalation set to begin next week.
Unveiling his retooled war strategy in a pivotal prime-time address from the White House, the president will acknowledge in unusually stark terms how dire the situation is – because of errors in U.S. assumptions and failures by the government in Iraq to follow through on promises.
The U.S. is changing its goals, switching from a focus on training Iraqi security forces to securing the battered population and decentralizing its reconstruction efforts and economic aid to the seats of the worst violence. Iraqis, meanwhile, will be expected to meet their responsibilities and take the lead in the fighting.
“The Iraqis have to step up,” White House counselor Dan Bartlett said.
Bartlett said that the rules of the past, where for instance U.S. forces in Baghdad “sometimes were handcuffed by political interference by the Iraqi leadership,” must end.
“They (the Iraqis) are going to have more boots on the ground,” he said. “They’re going to be the ones doing the knocking on the door.” Democrats, emboldened by November elections that put them in charge on Capitol Hill in part over the war, laid plans to register their opposition to the troop buildup.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would call a vote on the increase, trying to isolate Bush and put Republicans on the spot.
Democratic leaders in the Senate also said they would schedule a debate next week on a symbolic measure expressing opposition.
“American voters expect us to help get us out of Iraq,” said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., a 2008 presidential hopeful and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee that heard independent experts on Iraq.
In the latest sign of GOP unease, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the panel’s top Republican, said, “The president and his team need to explain what objectives we are trying to achieve if forces are expanded.” After nearly four years of fighting, $400 billion and thousands of American and Iraqi lives lost, approval of Bush’s handling of the war hit a record low of 27 percent in December, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.
Bush was to acknowledge a long and worsened list of problems in Iraq: the government capabilities still are limited, sectarian divisions have widened, members of Iraqi security forces are contributing to the violence and suffer from high absenteeism, the pitched fighting in Baghdad between Shiites and Sunnis has gotten worse and is influencing the rest of the country, essential services still are lacking, Iraqi support for the U.S. is declining, and Iraqis – while committed to a unified Iraq – are increasingly turning from the central government to pursue more narrow sectarian agendas to hedge their bets.
The president is arguing that a gradual increase in U.S. troops, along with pumping $1 billion into Iraq’s economy and other steps, is the answer.
His justification rests in part on new confidence that al-Maliki is better able to follow through on promises of the kind that have been made before and never kept. Bush also will urge Americans to see success in Iraq as imperative to their future security.
A breakdown of the additional troops was provided by a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the increase has not been officially announced: -He is committing 17,500 U.S. combat troops to Baghdad. The first of five brigades will arrive by next Monday. The next is to arrive by Feb. 15 and the reminder will go in 30-day increments.
-Bush is committing 4,000 more Marines to Anbar Province, a base of the Sunni insurgency and foreign al-Qaida fighters.
-The Iraqis are committing three brigades for Baghdad, the first to be delivered on Feb. 1. Two more will arrive on Feb. 15th.
