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Bush pledges 21k more troops for iraq { January 11 2007 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f083c684-a103-11db-acff-0000779e2340.htmlhttp://www.ft.com/cms/s/f083c684-a103-11db-acff-0000779e2340.html
Bush pledges 21,500 more troops for Iraq
By Edward Luce and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Published: January 11 2007 02:02 | Last updated: January 11 2007 03:49
George W. Bush on Wednesday night unveiled what many see as his last chance to salvage the deteriorating situation in Iraq with the pledge of 21,500 new US troops and an admission the current strategy was failing.
“Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me,” Mr Bush said in a live prime-time broadcast.
“It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq…In our discussions we all agreed that there is no magic formula for success in Iraq. One message came through loud and clear: Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States.”
Mr Bush told Americans that previous efforts to stabilise Baghdad had failed for two reasons: “There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighbourhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.”
In his 20-minute broadcast, the US president also warned that a withdrawal of US forces would lead to killings in Iraq on an “unimaginable scale”. “If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home,” he said.
However, leading Democrats and some Republicans on Wednesday night were swift to condemn Mr Bush’s “new way forward” saying it would only worsen the situation on the ground. Republican critics included Sam Brownback, the social conservative senator, who last month declared his candidacy for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
In a statement immediately following Mr Bush’s broadcast, Democratic leaders reiterated calls for a phased withdrawal of US forces over the next six months as a way of pressuring the Iraqi government to take responsibility for the country’s future. They said the much-anticipated troop “surge” went against the verdict of congressional elections last November and would be challenged by resolutions that could be tabled as early as Friday.
“This proposal endangers our national security by placing additional burdens on our already over-extended military thereby making it even more difficult to respond to other crises,” Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, said a statement.
The new approach that Mr Bush laid out in his broadcast is built on a plan drawn up by Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, that is aimed at stabilising the level of sectarian violence in Baghdad, which is the epicentre of Iraq’s emerging civil war.
Mr Bush said that Mr Maliki has promised to follow a series of performance “benchmarks” that were drawn up in Baghdad. Mr Bush on Wednesday declined to offer a timeline for Iraq to meet its self-imposed benchmarks. But he said America’s commitment to Iraq would not be “open-ended”.
“The president is trying to put a good face on the reality,” said Jack Reed, a Democratic senator. “So far the Iraqis have not responded to our request to perform. I’m very sceptical these benchmarks will be anything more than they’ve been in the past - just platitudes that are ignored.”
A senior US administration official said there would be new rules of engagement for Iraqi and US commanders that would enable them to succeed where previous efforts to pacify Iraq’s capital had failed - most recently last summer.
Iraq’s government would send three new brigades into Baghdad within the next month in addition to the six already there. The US would add five brigades to its Baghdad presence. The US would also send an additional 4,000 troops to Anbar province, which is the seat of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The overall level of US forces in Iraq will rise from 132,000 to more than 150,000 – although officials did not say by when.
“This will be an Iraqi plan that will be Iraqi-led and we believe will fix the problem,” said the official “If our previous strategy was “clear, hold and build” – we cleared, did not hold and the build never arrived.”
Senior US officials also on Wednesday ruled out following the regional “diplomatic offensive” that had been recommended in the bipartisan Iraq Study Group report last month. The report, which was led by James Baker, the former secretary of state, and Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic lawmaker, recommended that Mr Bush open talks with Iran and Syria in particular.
On Wednesday a US official said that a large proportion of the 79 ISG recommendations had been accepted by Mr Bush including the advice that more US army trainers were embedded “deep down at the company level” of the Iraqi military. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, will testify on Capitol Hill on Thursday about Mr Bush’s new way forward in Iraq.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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