Bush to announce new Iraq strategy next year

Washington, Dec 13: President George W Bush will delay announcing a new strategy for Iraq until the new year, the White House said amid polls showing Americans are more pessimistic about the war and want a change.

After Bush held talks with US military commanders about their assessment of the situation in Iraq and possible options, the White House said the president would not announce his new policy until next year, probably in January.

''That is not going to happen until the new year,'' White House spokesman Tony Snow said. ''He decided that, frankly, it's not ready yet.'' Aides previously said Bush hoped to announce a new strategy next week, before the Christmas holiday.

Bush is facing conflicting advice on how to shift course. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group report last week recommended pulling out most US combat troops by early 2008 with a rapid increase in training of Iraqi forces.

But Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, has called for a short-term increase in US troops, and other military experts who met with Bush yesterday disagreed with the Iraq Study Group's position on withdrawing troops.

Three new public opinion polls offered Bush a sobering picture of American doubts about his policy. A CBS News poll found Americans have never been as pessimistic about the war, with more than 60 percent saying it was a mistake.

''If you take a look at poll data, and there's a lot of discussion about that, what's interesting is that a majority of the American public not only thinks that we're capable of winning, but we should,'' Snow said.

Bush presided over a secure videoconference today with his US military commanders in Baghdad, Gens. John Abizaid and George Casey, and his national security team at the White House, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his replacement, Robert Gates, who will be sworn in next week.

Bush also wants his new defense secretary, who plans to visit Iraq, to be able to review options, Snow said. ''His input is not only going to be valuable, but necessary.'' Later, Bush met Iraq's vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, as he tries to bolster support for the struggling government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

''Our objective is to help the Iraqi government deal with the extremists and killers and support the vast majority of Iraqis who are reasonable people who want peace,'' Bush told Hashemi in the Oval Office. ''We want to help you, we want to help your government be effective.'' Bush has held a series of meetings this week to discuss the future in Iraq after giving a largely cool reception to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which was chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton.

Snow said the panel's report was not ''the touchstone'' of Bush's policy.

More than half of the respondents, or 55 per cent, in a USA Today/Gallup poll said they want most US troops withdrawn within a year, but only 18 per cent believe that will happen.

An ABC News poll found seven in 10 Americans disapproved of Bush's handling of Iraq and 61 percent said the war there was not worth fighting.

In the USA Today/Gallup survey, three out of four of those polled said they supported the three major recommendations made by the panel: direct talks with Iran and Syria, withdrawing most US combat troops by March 2008 and a new push aimed at resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The polls come amid signs the Bush administration, and to some extent the Iraq Study Group, have sought to place more responsibility on the Iraqis for their predicament.

''There is a consistent theme running through the Baker Hamilton report and the administration's present efforts to try to shift not just responsibility but also blame onto the Iraqis for the fact that things aren't going better,'' said Lee Feinstein, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

''I think what people are preparing for is failure and so trying to shift the blame before the chips fall,'' he added.

REUTERS

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