Bush to address Americans on Iraq plan Wednesday
Source: Reuters
(Adds congressional reaction, details) By Steve Holland WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush set Wednesday for his Iraq speech and worked on final details on Monday on a new war strategy expected to include sending up to 20,000 more U.S. troops over Democrats' objections. The White House said Bush would address Americans on his new Iraq plan on Wednesday at 9 p.m. EST (0200 GMT) . In what could be a last-ditch effort to salvage the U.S. mission in the unpopular 3 1/2-year war, Bush's new plan is expected to include dispatching up to 20,000 more troops and setting "benchmarks" for the Iraqi government to meet aimed at easing sectarian violence and stabilizing the country. It is expected as well to contain a jobs program with the goal of putting Iraqis back to work. Its cost was unclear but likely to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The plan seemed to be building on what the Bush administration has already sought to do in Iraq rather than a dramatic shift of course, including a pullback of U.S. forces, recommended by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group last month. Bush's proposals, many of which will contain funding that will have to be approved by the U.S. Congress, could set up a collision course with the new Democratic leadership, which says sending more troops to Iraq is an escalation of the war and that it is time to start bringing forces home. "I think there should be an overarching goal for our redeployment" from Iraq, said Missouri Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton, incoming chairman of the House of Representatives' Armed Services Committee. Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy questioned whether Congress would support funding for a troop increase. "Any request for additional troops is going to have to be accompanied by a very, very strong justification and in fact a detailed plan as to what would the purpose of that escalation of troops be," he said. REPUBLICANS ALSO CAUTIOUS Many Republicans also were reacting cautiously to a troop increase. "I have to study more of it," said Virginia Sen. John Warner, a top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who was briefed by Bush last Friday and was headed back to the White House on Monday. But a troop increase had some backers in Congress. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and the self-styled "independent Democrat" Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut urged Bush to send more troops. "For far too long we have not had enough troops in Iraq to provide security. It is time to correct that mistake," they wrote in a letter to Bush. Without saying what Bush will announce, White House spokesman Tony Snow gave no sign that the president was being swayed by the Democratic opposition. "The president will announce a way forward that is designed to lead to victory in Iraq," he said. Bush has already dismissed many of the main recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, whose report last month called for a pullback of most combat forces by early 2008 and direct talks with Iran and Syria. In the latest move in a shake-up of his Iraq team ahead of Wednesday's announcement, the White House said Bush would nominate the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to represent Washington at the United Nations and replace him with Ryan Crocker, currently U.S. ambassador to Pakistan. A U.S. official said Bush's goals on "benchmarks" include steps aimed at attracting more Sunnis into the Iraqi political process and to complete a long-stalled measure on distributing oil revenue. The goal is to try to prompt the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to act to bring the warring groups together into a political reconciliation. Democrats such as Michigan Sen. Carl Levin for months have been trying to coax Bush into linking continued U.S. troop involvement in Iraq to progress on political milestones. (Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and Matt Spetalnick)
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