Bush hails progress after Iraqi election

US President George Bush is seizing on Iraq’s elections to claim significant progress as he faces an uproar in Congress over whether he exceeded his powers in conducting the war on terror.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Bush will address the US nation early tomorrow following Vice President Dick Cheney’s surprise visit to Baghdad, where he asserted that Iraq’s emerging political structure ultimately would take responsibility for its own security.

The Pentagon hopes to be able to reduce US troop levels as Iraqi security forces become more capable of defending their own country, but it is unclear when that point will be reached.

The usual US troop level this year of about 138,000 was strengthened to about 160,000 in Autumn out of concern for a potential rise in violence during voting in October and December.

Bush’s address followed a string of weekend attacks by insurgents in Iraq that ended three days of relative calm. Nineteen people died, including two relatives of a senior Kurdish official.

The president’s embrace of the Iraqi political process comes amid revelations that the National Security Agency has engaged in domestic surveillance without court warrants for the past four years.

House and Senate Democratic leaders, and at least two Senate Republicans, called for congressional hearings and investigations.

But Bush said the eavesdropping was critical to saving American lives in the war against al-Qaida and consistent with US law and the Constitution.

His speech will be the president’s fifth in less than three weeks on Iraq, as he sets out the path he wants to take in 2006.

A new poll shows that a strong majority of Americans oppose an immediate withdrawal of US troops.

The AP-Ipsos poll found 57% of those surveyed said the US military should stay until Iraq was stabilised.