Bush set to announce troop reductions
US President George Bush will tomorrow announce plans to reduce the American troop presence in Iraq by as many as 30,000 by the middle of next year, subject to continued progress.
In a 15-minute address from the White House, Mr Bush will endorse the recommendations of his top general and top diplomat in Iraq, following their appearances at two days of hearings in Congress, administration officials said.
The White House plans to issue a written status report on the so-called surge on Friday, they said.
The officials spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because Mr Bush’s speech is not yet finalised. Mr Bush was rehearsing his remarks yesterday even as the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker were presenting their arguments for a second day in Congress.
In the speech, the President will say he understands Americans’ deep misgivings about US involvement in Iraq and their desire to bring the troops home, they said.
Bush will say that, after hearing from Petraeus and Crocker, he has decided on a way forward that will reduce the US military presence but not abandon Iraq to chaos, according to the officials.
The address will stake out a conciliatory tone toward Congress. While mirroring Petraeus’ strategy, however, Bush will place more conditions on reductions than his general did, insisting that conditions on the ground must warrant cuts and that unforeseen events could change the plan.
Even if it goes as planned, the 130,000 or so troops left by midyear 2008 will match the number in Iraq before Bush ordered the buildup last January.
Petraeus recommended that a 2,000-member Marine unit return home this month without replacement. That would be followed in mid-December with the departure of an Army brigade numbering 3,500 to 4,000 soldiers. Under the general’s plan, another four combat brigades would be withdrawn by July 2008.
That could leave the United States with as few as 130,000-135,000 troops in Iraq, down from about 168,000 now, although Petraeus was not precise about whether all of the roughly 8,000 support troops sent with those extra combat forces would be withdrawn by July.
Petraeus said he foresaw even deeper troop cuts beyond July, but he recommended that Bush wait until at least March to decide when to go below 130,000 and at what pace.
At the White House, Bush met with lawmakers of both parties from the House of Representatives and the Senate, and he publicly pledged to consider their views. Senator Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate’s Republican minority, said the President did not talk about his coming speech.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said Bush appears poised merely to bring the country back to where it was before the election that put Democrats in control of Congress – with 130,000 troops in Iraq.
“Please. It’s an insult to the intelligence of the American people that that is a new direction in Iraq,” she said.
“We’re as disappointed as the public is that the President has a tin ear to their opinion on this war.”
In his speech, Bush will adopt Petraeus’ call for more time to determine the pace and scale of future withdrawals and offer to report to Congress in March, one official said.
As Petraeus and Crocker have, Bush will acknowledge difficulties, and the fact that few of the benchmarks set by Congress to measure progress of the build-up have been met, the official said. Yet, he will stress that a precipitous US withdrawal would be a catastrophe for Iraq and for US interests.
The President will discuss security improvements, notably in Anbar Province, which he visited on Labour Day and where Sunni leaders have allied themselves with US forces to fight insurgents. He also will note incremental progress on the political front despite unhelpful roles played by Iran and Syria, the official said.
Crocker was particularly keen on detailing diplomatic developments, including Saudi Arabia’s move to open an embassy in Baghdad and a third conference of Iraqi neighbours to be hosted by Turkey in Istanbul at the end of October.
