Bush says 'good sign' Iraqis want US strategy soon
Source: Reuters
(Updates with Bush comments, background) By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush responded on Monday to criticism the United States was too slow in completing a new strategy to secure Baghdad, saying it was a "good sign" Iraqis wanted the plan more quickly. Bush's strategy involves sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq, with about 17,000 of them to Baghdad to help reduce escalating violence in the capital against U.S.-led forces and between rival factions of Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. The move has come under a barrage of criticism from the new Democratic majority in both houses of Congress and some in his own Republican Party. Opinion polls show it is also unpopular among the majority of Americans. The New York Times reported on Monday that many Iraqis said the slow pace of putting the plan into action contributed to the worst suicide bombing of the war -- a truck bomb that killed 135 people in a Shi'ite area of Baghdad on Saturday. The violence shows no signs of abating, with three car bombs killing 24 people in Baghdad on Monday. "It's a good sign that there's a sense of concern and anxiety. It means that the (Iraqi) government understands they have a responsibility to protect their people," Bush said. "And we want to help them," he told reporters after meeting his Cabinet about his proposed $2.9 trillion federal budget for the 2008 fiscal year, Iraq and other issues. Bush said the budget, which estimated a sharply slower rate of spending for the Iraq war in 2009 and did not give a forecast for spending beyond that year, did not imply a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops. In the budget, Bush estimated an additional $50 billion in spending for the Iraq war for 2009 after proposing $145 billion in spending for 2008. "There will be no timetable set. And the reason why is because we don't want to send mixed signals to an enemy or to a struggling democracy or to our troops," Bush said. Gen. David Petraeus, the new top U.S. commander in Iraq, will head there early on Tuesday, and Bush said his message was to "get this plan in place as quickly as possible." The Senate was expected to vote on Monday on whether to move forward with debate on a non-binding resolution that shows opposition to Bush's plan to increase troop levels in Iraq. Republican leaders have vowed to block it.
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