Bush warns of more troop deaths in last-ditch plan

President Bush addresses the nation from the White House library in Washington yesterday.

DEFYING public opinion, congressional opposition and the unease of some of his military commanders, President George Bush will send more troops to Iraq in what is seen as a last-ditch bid to stabilise the country.

Mr Bush, in a nationally televised address, attempted to convince a sceptical America that this was how to bring its involvement in Iraq closer to an end.

"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," Mr Bush told Americans.

But he also warned that the next year would be "bloody and violent … we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties".

It was a different President from the confident, even bellicose man who had previously proclaimed that America was winning and he would accept nothing less than victory. In this speech, Mr Bush took personal responsibility for mistakes in fighting the Iraq war. "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."

He said it was legitimate to ask why this plan would work when others had failed. "This time we will have the force levels we need to hold the areas that have been cleared.

"Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: there were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighbourhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have."

He said that American military commanders had reviewed the Iraqi plan to make sure it dealt with these mistakes.

Mr Bush cast the new strategy as an Iraqi initiative, saying it had been presented to him by Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at their recent summit in Jordan.

The plan involves sending 17,500 more US troops to Baghdad to support an extra 10,000 to 12,000 Iraqi forces, and 4000 more US troops in Anbar province, where he vowed a renewed effort to attack al-Qaeda.

He said Iraqi forces would operate from local police stations, going "door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents", while American troops would be embedded more with Iraqi troops.

He accused Syria and Iran of allowing insurgents to use their territory, and Iran of providing material support for attacks on US troops, and promised action to stop it. "We will disrupt the attacks on our forces," he said.

Mr Bush also foreshadowed a new diplomatic push in the Middle East to gather support for Iraq. "Countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States need to understand that an American defeat in Iraq would create a new sanctuary for extremists … and a strategic threat to their survival," he said.

Theage.com.au

Rice says Bush authorised raid on Iranians in Iraq: report

WASHINGTON - Recent US raids against Iranian interests in Iraq were conducted under an order from President George W. Bush authorising a military offensive against Iranian operatives in the country, The New York Times reported late Friday, citing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"There has been a decision to go after these networks," Rice was quoted by the Times as saying Friday before leaving on a trip to the Middle East.

Rice said Bush had acted "after a period of time in which we saw increasing activity" among Iranians in Iraq, "and increasing lethality in what they were producing," the Times said in an article posted on its website.

Rice was referring to what American military officials say is evidence that many of the most sophisticated improvised explosive devices, or IED's, being used against American troops were made in Iran, the newspaper said.

Rice was vague as to when Bush issued the order, but said his decision grew out of questions that the president and members of his National Security Council raised in the fall, according to the report.

Rice's willingness to discuss the issue seemed to reflect a more aggressive stance towards Iran that was first evident in Bush's speech to the nation on Wednesday, in which he accused Tehran of providing material support for attacks on American troops and vowed to respond, The Times said.

Until now, despite a series of raids in which Iranians have been seized by American forces in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq, administration officials have declined to say whether Bush ordered such actions, the paper said.

Administration officials now describe Iran as the single greatest threat the United States faces in the Middle East, though some administration critics regard the talk about Iran as a diversion, one intended to shift attention away from the spiralling chaos in Iraq, the report said.

In the interview, Rice described the military effort against Iranians in Iraq as a defensive "force protection mission," but said it was also motivated by concerns that Iran was trying to further destabilize the country, The Times said.

Agence France-Presse