Acknowledging the failure of previous U.S. attempts to quell the violence in Iraq, President Bush on Wednesday unveiled an ambitious plan to flood Baghdad with newly empowered troops and fresh reconstruction funds.
In a prime-time 20 minute address to the nation from the Library of the White House, the president laid out a detailed proposal that will add 21,500 U.S. troops to the 132,000 already there. The U.S. will also spend more than $1 billion on new reconstruction projects aimed at helping to stabilize the war-torn nation.
“The new strategy I outline tonight will change America’s course in Iraqand help us succeed in the fight against terror,” Bush promised.
The president also used the speech to obliquely raise the threat of military action against Iran, which has called for the destruction of Israel.
“We will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region,” he said. “I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.”
Mindful of growing opposition to the war, Bush made a point of putting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government on notice that America’s patience is wearing thin. He used the speech to publicly pressure al-Maliki into making good on promised benchmarks of democratic reform.
“I have made it clear to the prime minister and Iraq’s other leaders that America’s commitment is not open-ended,” Bush warned. “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. Now is the time to act.”
In a concession to Democrats who have pilloried his Iraq policy, the president sounded a note of contrition in his speech. He acknowledged that his hopes for peace in early 2006 were dashed by the February bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, which touched off widespread sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites.
“Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons,” Bush said. “There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.”
So Bush and al-Maliki will flood Baghdad and the troubled Anbar province with U.S. and Iraqi troops, who will have a freer hand in going after insurgents and militias, including the Mahdi Army, which is headed by radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
“Without going into details of presidential conversations, everybody understands that the Mahdi Army and Sadr have to be dealt with,” a senior administration official said.
The ramp-up will bring the size of the U.S. contingent in Iraq to about 153,500 troops, somewhat smaller than a year ago, when troop levels peaked at 160,000. This latest surge of troops will cost $5.6 billion.
Bush called on Iraq to assume primary responsibility for combat operations in all provinces by November although, he did not threaten to withdraw U.S. troops if the transition takes longer. To accelerate training, U.S. forces will become more deeply embedded in Iraqi military units.
White House officials cautioned that the new offensive could cause a spike in violence, at least in the short term. But they emphasized that the new strategy, which has been months in the making, was crucial for success.
“What we were doing wasn’t working,” a second administration official conceded. “And obviously, you don’t want to declare a strategy dead until you have a new one to put in its place.”
The president’s push for more troops flies in the face of Democratic calls to begin withdrawing forces from Iraq.
“To step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government,” Bush said. “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.
“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.”
