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January 11th,
2007 - Bush Adds Troops in Bid to Secure Iraq |
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Bush Adds Troops in Bid to
Secure Iraq By David E. Sanger New York Times January 11, 2007 Washington, Jan. 10 -
President Bush embraced a major tactical shift on Wednesday evening in the
war in Iraq when he declared that the only way to quell sectarian violence
there was to send more than 20,000 additional American troops into combat. Yet in defying mounting
pressure to begin troop withdrawals, the president reiterated his argument
that the consequences of failure in Iraq were so high that the United States
could not afford to lose. In a speech to the nation,
Mr. Bush conceded for the first time that there had not been enough American
or Iraqi troops in Baghdad to halt the capital’s descent over the past year
into chaos. In documents released just before the speech, the White House
acknowledged that his previous strategy was based on fundamentally flawed
assumptions about the power of the shaky Iraqi government. Mr. Bush gave no indication
that the troop increase would be short-lived, describing his new strategy as
an effort to “change America’s course in Iraq,” and he said that “we must
expect more Iraqi and American casualties” in the course of more intensive round-the-clock
patrols in some of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods. But Mr. Bush rekindled his
argument that a withdrawal would doom to failure the American experiment in
Iraq, touch off chaos throughout the Middle East, provide a launching pad for
attacks in the United States, and embolden Iran to develop nuclear weapons. In making that argument, the
president rejected strategies advocated by newly empowered Democrats, restive
Republicans and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, describing them as a formula
for deepening disaster. “To step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi
government,” Mr. Bush said from the White House library, a room that
officials said had been chosen to create more of a sense of a conversation
with an anxious American public, rather than the formal surroundings of the
Oval Office. “Such a scenario would
result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and confront
an enemy that is even more lethal,” Mr. Bush said. “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 also offered his most
direct acknowledgment of error in an American-led war that has lasted nearly
four years and claimed more than 3,000 American lives. “Where mistakes have
been made, the responsibility lies with me,” he said. Yet for the first time, Mr.
Bush faces what could become considerable political opposition to pursuing a
war in which 132,000 Americans are already committed, even before the
increases announced Wednesday. Democrats in Congress are
drawing up plans for what, at a minimum, could be a nonbinding resolution
expressing opposition to the commitment of more forces to what many of them
say they now believe is a losing fight. They will be joined by some
Republicans, and may attempt other steps to block Mr. Bush from deepening the
American commitment. Not since Richard M. Nixon
ordered American troops in Vietnam to invade Cambodia in 1970 has a president
taken such a risk with an increasingly unpopular war. “For the safety of our
people, America must succeed in Iraq,” Mr. Bush said in repeating an argument
that he has used for nearly four years - that a retreat from the country
before a decisive victory is won would provide terrorists a place in which to
conduct new attacks on the United States and American targets. As part of a campaign to
market the new strategy, Mr. Bush’s aides insisted that the plan was largely
created by the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. Yet Mr. Bush sounded less
than certain of his support for the prime minister, who many in the White
House and the military fear may be intending to extend Shiite power over the
Sunnis, or could prove incapable of making good on his promises. “If the
Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the
support of the American people and it will lose the support of the Iraqi
people,” Mr. Bush declared. He put it far more bluntly
when leaders of Congress visited the White House earlier on Wednesday. “I
said to Maliki this has to work or you’re out,” the president told the
Congressional leaders, according to two officials who were in the room.
Pressed on why he thought this strategy would succeed where previous efforts
had failed, Mr. Bush shot back: “Because it has to.” In his 20-minute address to
the nation, Mr. Bush said that for the first time Iraq would take
command-and-control authority over all of its own forces, and that while more
American ground troops were being put into the field, they would take more of
a background role. He said the Iraqi government had committed to a series of
“benchmarks” - which included another 8,000 Iraqi troops and policemen in
Baghdad, passage of long-delayed legislation to share oil revenues among
Iraq’s sects and ethnic groups, and a $10 billion jobs and reconstruction
program, financed by the Iraqis. Until the summer, Mr. Bush
had used the phrase “stay the course” to describe his approach in Iraq, and
his decision to describe his new strategy as an effort to “change America’s
course” appeared intended to distance himself from that old approach. An
earlier plan unveiled in November 2005 had been titled “Strategy for Victory
in Iraq,” but Mr. Bush used the word “victory” sparingly on Wednesday night,
and then only to diminish expectations. “The question is whether our
new strategy will bring us closer to success,” he said. “I believe that it
will,” saying that if it is successful it would result in a “functioning
democracy” that “fights terrorists instead of harboring them.” In some of his sharpest
words of warning to Iran, Mr. Bush accused the Iranian government of
“providing material support for attacks on American troops” and vowed to
“seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training
to our enemies.” He left deliberately vague
the question of whether those operations would be limited to Iraq or
conducted elsewhere, and said he had ordered the previously reported
deployment of a new aircraft carrier strike group to the region, where it is
in easy reach of Iranian territory. Mr. Bush also announced that
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would leave Friday for the region to
build diplomatic support for the American effort in Iraq. Robert M. Gates, who
replaced Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary, is among the new members of
the Iraq team whom Mr. Bush has brought in to execute the new strategy. In the past week, Mr. Bush
has speeded up the removal of the American commander in Iraq, Gen. George W.
Casey Jr., who is to become the Army chief of staff, and replaced him with a
counterinsurgency specialist, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus , who has embraced
the new plan. A new American ambassador has been nominated to Baghdad as
well, to replace Zalmay Khalilzad, a Sunni of Afghan heritage, who has been nominated
to represent the United States in the United Nations. While Democrats and some
Republicans who attacked Mr. Bush’s plan in advance of the speech have
questioned sending more troops, others question whether the Bush plan is too
small - and falls short of the numbers needed to make a difference in a
violent capital of six million. Nonetheless, one of Mr.
Bush’s top advisers said at the White House on Wednesday that he expected
that Senator John McCain, who has championed a significant, long-term increase
in troops, would embrace the plan. The adviser cited a section
of the Iraq Study Group’s report that had said the bipartisan commission
could “support a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces
to stabilize Baghdad, or to speed up the training and equipping mission.” But on the same page, the
report warned that “adding more American troops could conceivably worsen
those aspects of the security problem that are fed by the view that the
United States presence is intended to be a long-term ‘occupation.’ ”
Similarly, the group urged direct engagement with Iran and Syria; Mr. Bush
rejected that approach. Mr. Bush, one of his top
aides said in an interview on Wednesday, simply concluded that “the Iraqi
government was running out of time” and would collapse without additional
help. Yet at the core of Mr. Bush’s new strategy, his own aides said, lies a
tension between two objectives: Mr. Bush’s commitment to staying in Iraq
until the country is a stable, self-sustaining democracy, and his vague
threat to Mr. Maliki that the American presence would be cut short if
Americans believed that the effort was failing. His aides hinted that the
administration had already come up with a “Plan B” in case the latest
strategy failed, with one saying “there are other ways to achieve our
objective.” But he would not describe that strategy, or say if it involved
withdrawal, containment or the breakup of the country into sectarian
entities. The five-brigade increase in
American forces will be accomplished by speeding up the deployment of four
units already scheduled to go to Iraq, and by sending one additional brigade
that was not scheduled to go. The total increase of American troops in Iraq
amounts to roughly 20,000, including 4,000 marines who will be stationed in
Anbar Province, the stronghold of elements of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the
Sunni insurgency. The increase in Iraqi troops and policemen amounts,
officials said, to about 8,000. The units heading into Iraq
begin with a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, now in Kuwait, expected
in Iraq before the end of the month, followed by a brigade of the First
Infantry Division, based at Fort Riley, Kan., probably next month. The Army is also planning to
announce that the Second Infantry Division, Fourth Brigade, based in Fort
Lewis, Wash., and the Third Infantry Division’s Second Brigade, based at Fort
Stewart, Ga., and the Third Brigade, based at Fort Benning, Ga., should begin
preparing to go to Iraq earlier than scheduled. Officials said that the total
increase in troops could take three or four months. The Bush plan also calls for
delaying the departure from Iraq of a Minnesota National Guard brigade by
four months, an official said. The unit had planned to leave in the spring
and had not been notified that it would be staying longer, Lt. Col. Kevin
Olson, a spokesman for the Minnesota Guard, said Wednesday. The president is expected to
submit a supplemental budget request that will include $5.6 billion for the
new troop commitment and roughly $1.1 billion for new job commitments and aid. Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/world/middleeast/11prexy.html |