Military to back big Iraq buildup

WASHINGTON — As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to "double down" in the country with a substantial buildup in U.S. troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff will present their assessment and recommendations to President Bush at the Pentagon today.

Military officials, including some advising the chiefs, have argued that an intensified effort might be the only way to get the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy right and provide a chance for victory.

The approach overlaps somewhat a course promoted publicly by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. But the Pentagon proposals add several additional features, including the confrontation with al-Sadr, a possible renewed offensive in the Sunni stronghold of Anbar province, a large Iraqi jobs program and a proposal for a long-term increase in the size of the military.

Such an option would appear to satisfy Bush's demand for a strategy focused on victory rather than disengagement from Iraq.

It would disregard key recommendations and warnings of the Iraq Study Group, however, and provide little comfort for those fearful of a long, open-ended U.S. commitment in the country.

James Dobbins, a former U.S. diplomat and adviser to the Iraq Study Group, said many Iraqis think U.S. forces put them in danger, rather than improve security. "The American troop presence is wildly unpopular in Iraq," Dobbins said. "Any effort to double our bet will lead to ever more catastrophic results."

Only 12 percent of Americans would support a troop increase, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

Such a proposal, military officials and experts caution, would be a gamble.

"I think it is worth trying," said a Defense Department official, using the gamblers' term for doubling a bet. "But you can't have the rhetoric without the resources. This is a double down."

Any chance of success likely would require major changes in the Iraqi government, they said. U.S. Embassy officials likely would have to help usher into power a new coalition in Baghdad that was willing to confront the militias. The new strategy also would require more spending by the United States, for growth of the U.S. military and additional money for an Iraqi jobs program.

The wild card in the Pentagon planning process is Robert Gates, due to be sworn in as defense secretary Monday. Gates had breakfast with Bush on Tuesday and will participate, along with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in today's meetings.

Bush is making a public drive this week to collect recommendations from his administration as he crafts a new strategy for Iraq, but the White House said Tuesday he will delay until January his planned report to the nation on the direction he and aides are charting. Earlier reports said he had planned a national address by the end of next week.

The president, White House press secretary Tony Snow said, "decided, frankly, it's not ready yet," even though most of the internal debates "have kind of been ironed out."

The delay means that if Bush opts for an increase in the roughly 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, as some experts have advocated, he will not unveil it just before the winter holidays.

Some defense officials said Gates might make a bid for more time so he can weigh other military options. Before endorsing an increase in combat forces, Gates might press commanders in Iraq for assurances that U.S. forces can hold off an escalation of the sectarian war that has gripped the country.

"This is the big moment," said the Defense Department official, who asked not to be identified. "It is enormously important for the new secretary of defense to revisit what the overall objective is ... and what is needed to achieve that."

The size of the troop increase the Pentagon will recommend is unclear. One officer suggested an increase of 40,000 forces would be required, but other officials said such a number is unrealistic.

The problem with any surge is that it would require an eventual drop in 2008, unless the president was willing to take the politically unpopular move of remobilizing the National Guard and sending reserve combat units back to Iraq.

An increase in U.S. forces is not universally popular in the military. Army Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, has long argued that increasing the force would be counterproductive, angering the people the United States is trying to help.

Military officers also think a confrontation with al-Sadr is inevitable. Robert Killebrew, a defense strategist and retired colonel, said the U.S. military has four to six months to take on al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia is growing faster than the Iraqi army.

"We have to deal somehow with the militias, and al-Sadr in particular; he is rapidly becoming the armed power in Iraq," he said. "Our conventional forces, not advisers, will have to team with the Iraqi army and neutralize the Mahdi Army and the other militias. If we don't do that, everything else we are talking about is hot air."