Gains in Iraq giving Bush a political boost

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Wednesday intensified his pitch to stay the course in Iraq, an effort to shift the standard once set for measuring success there and to change the political dynamic inside Congress.

Bush now seems more likely to prevail when Congress resumes wrestling about Iraq in September because reports of some limited military progress in Iraq have stiffened Republican support for Bush's policy while putting Democrats on the defensive. Without more Republican support, Democrats can't overcome Bush's veto power to force a change in policy.

"Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground," Bush declared in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, Mo., the first in a new round of speeches on the war. "And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?"

Bush's argument underscores the high stakes in Washington as lawmakers await a Sept. 11 assessment by Gen. David Petraeus of the president's troop-escalation strategy. Reports that violence and civilian deaths have been tamped down and that alliances have been forged with Sunnis in Anbar province against al-Qaida in Iraq have made pro-withdrawal U.S. lawmakers vulnerable to attack.

Bush voiced confidence that his strategy is working, even while admitting frustration about the lack of progress toward reconciliation. That was supposed to be the key measure of success, the administration had said when it launched the plan. The influx of troops was supposed to ease security stress enough for Iraq's rival factions to begin cooperating. That hasn't happened.

The shifting military and political landscape was evident Wednesday in Bush's assessment of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

One day after implicitly faulting al-Maliki for failing to foster progress, Bush called him a "good guy, a good man with a difficult job." Al-Maliki earlier had warned Bush after talks with longtime U.S. adversaries in Syria that Iraq "can find friends elsewhere" if the United States doesn't like the way he runs his country.

Reports of tactical military progress haven't changed Democrats' plans to hold more House and Senate votes in September on deadlines for U.S. troop withdrawal. But those reports have dampened Democrats' prospects of persuading more Republicans to join them.

Nevertheless, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after Bush's speech that "the president's strategy is still failing to deliver the political solution necessary for Iraq's stability. A change of course in Iraq is long overdue, and Congress will continue to fight for that change."

Republicans said reports of military progress in Iraq have greatly eased pressure on their members to abandon the war. They may even be able to put Democrats on the defensive.

"While political reconciliation at the national level has come too slowly, grass-roots reconciliation in provinces like Anbar and other Iraqi towns is encouraging," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. He'd suggested earlier that Republicans might start backing off their support for the war by September if Bush's strategy wasn't working.

"Everyone agrees that more progress on political reconciliation is essential, but pushing for a precipitous withdrawal when the momentum is ours is not just irrational, it is negligent," Boehner said.

Republicans also cite shifting sentiments among Democrats, such as Washington state Rep. Brian Baird, upon his return from a recent visit to Baghdad.

"I believe giving it more time is worth the risk," Baird, D-Vancouver, said Wednesday. "We need to sustain the investment, at least for a while, in the belief things are getting better."

Before Congress' August recess, Baird had supported legislation that called for withdrawal of U.S. forces to begin within 120 days. He now says he wishes the measure had never come up and that he hasn't so much reversed his position as "adjusted" his thinking.

"We need to keep our force strength where it is until next spring and give the political rhetoric a rest," he said. "If the Democrats were less interested in finding fault and blaming people for a colossal mistake and if Republicans would stop being superpatriots, it would give a chance for our troops on the ground to operate."

Meanwhile, a new pro-administration advocacy group said it will pressure Congress to back Bush's policy. It plans to spend $15 million on a monthlong radio and TV ad campaign in more than 20 states.

"Our mission is to get out the message that surrender is not an option in Iraq — to stiffen the back of Congress to do the right thing and not to switch votes for political reasons," Freedom's Watch President Bradley Blakeman said.

Opponents say the group is a front for the White House. Both Blakeman and Ari Fleischer, another member, are former senior members of the Bush White House staff. Blakeman dismissed the claim.

The administration's pitches appear to be making headway. A Gallup Poll in early August showed that 31 percent of Americans said Bush's strategy is making the situation better. That's a nine-point increase from early July. Still, 57 percent of Americans think it was a mistake to send troops to Iraq at all, according to the poll.

About 162,000 troops are in Iraq. Petraeus is expected to ask Congress to give the extra troops more time in Iraq. The military has said it cannot maintain those levels past April and still give troops one year off between their 15-month deployments, as Pentagon regulations require.

McClatchy Newspapers reporters Warren P. Strobel, Nancy Youssef and Les Blumenthal and the Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.