Bush defines new path, warns of bloody year ahead

WASHINGTON — President Bush laid out his "New Way Forward" in Iraq on Wednesday night, saying the United States should beef up its forces there by 21,500 troops, add $1.2 billion in reconstruction aid, and let Iraqi forces take the lead in joint combat operations.

"The changes I have outlined tonight are aimed at ensuring the survival of a young democracy that is fighting for its life in a part of the world of enormous importance to American security," Bush said in a nationally televised address. "The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will."

Bush's optimism was immediately challenged by Democratic leaders, who repeated their opposition to increasing troop levels. Even some Republicans criticized the plan.

The president acknowledged previous failures.

"Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me," he said. Past efforts to quell violence in Baghdad failed, he said, because "there were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods" and "there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have."

He said his plan would remedy such flaws.

In earlier operations, the president said, "political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence."

"This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter those neighborhoods," Bush said.

He warned of a "bloody and violent" year ahead, despite his new proposals.

"This new strategy will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings, assassinations or IED [improvised explosive device] attacks," Bush said. "Our enemies in Iraq will make every effort to ensure that our television screens are filled with images of death and suffering."

Bush appeared to signal a more aggressive policy toward Syria and Iran, saying the United States would take unspecified steps to "disrupt" attacks on U.S. troops by terrorists and insurgents who use Iranian and Syrian territory as a base.

He also put Iraq on notice that America won't stay forever.

"I have made it clear to [Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki] and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended," Bush said.

"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."

Later, he added, "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."

Another central element of Bush's revised strategy will focus on expanded economic assistance.

The United States will allocate $1.2 billion more for three programs to create jobs and help reconstruction in neighborhoods, as they are secured by Iraqi and U.S. forces. That aid would be in addition to the $21 billion already sent to Iraq for reconstruction.

The emphasis will be on putting Iraqis to work to dissuade them from joining Shiite militias and the Sunni insurgency.

"It's not a bad choice under the circumstances," one veteran of the initial reconstruction effort said. "Everybody who had half a brain cell knew this is what we should have done four years ago" instead of paying private, U.S. contractors to rebuild and modernize infrastructure and trying to turn Iraq's highly centralized, government-owned economy into free-market capitalism overnight, the person said.

Many outside experts, however, said the new program would have little impact.

"Unless they deal with the basic peace issue, unless there's some kind of political agreement, all of this is at the margins and irrelevant," said Carlos Pascual, vice president and director of foreign-policy studies at the Brookings Institution.

Pascual, who until late 2005 was the director of the State Department's Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization, said: "The reality is that one of the reasons why people can't work is because there's a war."

Bush's immediate audience is a Democrat-controlled Congress hostile to his plan to increase U.S. troops in Iraq. Democratic House and Senate leaders issued a statement, repeating their opposition.

House and Senate Democrats plan floor votes soon on resolutions opposing the troop buildup, but they'll be nonbinding. Democratic congressional leaders also don't appear to have an immediate consensus on what, if any, binding legislation they should push or how fast to move.

Bush no longer can count on solid Republican support in Congress.

"I refuse to put more American lives on the line in Baghdad without being assured that the Iraqis themselves are willing to do what they need to do to end the violence of Iraqi against Iraqi," said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.

Similarly, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who is exploring a bid for the presidency in 2008, declared himself against a troop increase Wednesday.

"I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer," Brownback said while traveling in Iraq. "Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution."

In the House, eight Republicans sent a letter Wednesday to Bush urging him not to increase troop levels.

Many of Bush's proposals — a limited increase in U.S. troops, Iraqis taking the lead, reconstruction aid — have been tried before and failed. Last fall, for example, an Iraqi-led joint U.S.-Iraqi military mission to secure some of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods produced complaints from U.S. military commanders about the ineptness of Iraqi forces.

Americans have soured on Iraq. In recent polls, public support for sending more troops to Iraq ranged from 12 percent to 36 percent of Americans, depending on how the question was phrased.

"This is his last chance to convince the American public that he knows what he's doing and victory is possible," said Dennis Goldford, a political-science professor at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

Details on economic aid were provided by The Washington Post.