Bush tells soldiers new Iraq strategy to take time
Source: Reuters
(Updates with Bush, Bartlett, details) By Tabassum Zakaria FORT BENNING, Ga., Jan 11 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Thursday told soldiers that his strategy of sending more U.S. troops to Iraq would not yield immediate results in clamping down on sectarian violence. One day after proposing to increase U.S. forces by 21,500, mostly to help secure Baghdad, Bush appealed for patience. "The new strategy is not going to yield immediate results. it's going to take a while," Bush said at Fort Benning, an Army base in Georgia from which about 4,000 more soldiers will soon deploy to Iraq. "The American people have got to understand that suicide bombings won't stop immediately," he said. "Yet over time we can expect to see positive results and that would be the Iraqis chasing down the murderers." American public opinion has turned against the Iraq war in which more than 3,000 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. Democrats who control Congress and some in Bush's own Republican Party oppose his plan to increase troops by 17,500 in Baghdad and 4,000 in Anbar province. White House counselor Dan Bartlett said given the experience in Iraq, it was "not surprising" that the public and members of Congress wanted to take a "wait-and-see approach." But he said those who rejected Bush's plan before it had a chance to work had the burden to propose an alternative that would work. "We've seen a lot of criticism and I think right now we're looking for some constructive dialogue," he said. Bush joined soldiers for lunch and watched a parachute-jumping exercise in his first visit to Fort Benning, where infantry soldiers are trained and which is the home of the U.S. Army Ranger School. Bush said it was up to the Iraqis to end sectarian violence and that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, had shown resolve by making it clear that militias including the Mehdi Army had the choice to either disarm or face justice. "That's the kind of leadership that the Iraqi people expect. And that's the kind of leadership I expect, and the American people expect," Bush said. Washington has identified the Mehdi Army, a militia loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, as a threat to security in Iraq and has been pressing Maliki to take it on. (Additional reporting by Caren Bohan)
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