Bush rules out policy change in Iraq

US President George Bush reviewed Iraq strategy with his top commanders and national security advisers, but indicated little inclination for major changes to an increasingly divisive policy.

“Our goal in Iraq is clear and unchanging: Our goal is victory,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. “What is changing are the tactics we use to achieve that goal.”

Under bipartisan, pre-election pressure for a significant re-examination of the president’s war plan, the White House is walking a fine line.

It made sure to publicise the president’s top-level meeting on the deteriorating conditions in Iraq – October is already the deadliest month this year for US troops. At the same time, officials characterised the session as routine and part of a continuing discussion that seeks merely tactical adjustments to – not a radical overhaul of – war policy.

“I wouldn’t read into this somehow that there is a full-scale push for a major re-evaluation,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said about the White House meeting.

Rice, travelling from Asia to Moscow, stressed to reporters that Bush talked often with his generals in Iraq and did so recently at Camp David.

On Friday, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said US officials – General George Casey, head of the US-led Multinational Forces in Iraq, and US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad among them – were working with the Iraqi government to develop projections on when they can pass off various pieces of responsibility for security and governing.

The New York Times, in an article posted on its webpage yesterday, said a plan being formulated by Casey and Khalilzad would probably, for the first time, outline to Iraq milestones for disarming sectarian militias and meeting other political and economic goals.

But it said the blueprint, to be presented to Iraqi prime minister Nouri Maliki by the end of this year, would not threaten Iraq with a withdrawal of US troops.

In a candid assessment of the situation in Iraq, Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the US State Department, said in an interview on al-Jazeera television that the US had shown “arrogance” and “stupidity” in Iraq, but was now willing to talk to any group, outside of al Qaida, to further reconciliation in the country.

The 90-minute White House session Saturday brought together General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Middle East; General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley; Rumsfeld; and other officials.

Participating by videoconference were US vice president Dick Cheney, Casey and Khalilzad.

White House spokeswoman Nicole Guillemard said it was the third in a series of consultations Bush had held recently with war commanders and that similar sessions were planned in the weeks ahead.

“The participants focused on the nature of the enemy, the challenges in Iraq, how to better pursue our strategy, and the stakes of succeeding for the region and the security of the American people,” she said.