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President Bush, acknowledging that he is considering a deployment of more troops in Iraq, said Wednesday that any expansion of forces will happen only with a defined mission that the military can carry out and win.
A day after announcing that he wanted to enlarge the overall U.S. military to help fight the war on terrorism, Bush told reporters at a year-end news conference that he still had not decided whether to send more troops to Iraq as part of a new strategy he plans to announce next month.
As the president spoke about the difficulty U.S. forces face in Iraq, his new defense secretary, Robert Gates, made an unannounced trip to Baghdad to sound out U.S. military officials on the proposed "surge" in forces.
Bush warned that additional sacrifices will be required to prevail over the insurgents in Iraq and the sectarian violence, but he made clear that he wanted assurances that any new strategy will succeed.
"I will tell you we're looking at all options, and one of those options, of course, is increasing more troops," Bush said. "But in order to do so ... there's got to be a specific mission that can be accomplished with the addition of more troops before, you know, I agree on that strategy."
In his meetings in Baghdad, Gates found some concern that an increase in U.S. troops might give the Iraqis less incentive to quickly take control of their country. "It's clearly a consideration," the defense secretary said of reservations by commanders on the ground.
Several ranking commanders have publicly opposed sending more troops to Iraq, including Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, who has announced his pending retirement. Among their reservations are questions about whether the troops would be used to lower the violence in Baghdad, train Iraqi forces or something else; how long they would be deployed, and their rules of engagement.
With some of the president's advisers privately proposing a surge of 20,000 or more additional troops in Iraq to confront the violence there - particularly in Baghdad - Bush insisted he hasn't decided. He insisted that there is no divide between him and military leaders who may be advising against a surge in forces.
"That's a dangerous hypothetical question," Bush said. "Let me wait and gather all the recommendations."
Bush, who had previously maintained that U.S. and coalition forces "absolutely" are winning in Iraq, delivered another of the more sobering assessments he has made in recent weeks. He called 2006 "a difficult year," and he acknowledged this week that his administration is neither winning nor losing its bid to stabilize Iraq. Yet he defiantly insisted that victory is achievable and that the U.S. will prevail.
Asked if he will pursue a war that a majority of surveyed Americans now oppose, the president declared: "I am willing to follow a path that leads to victory. Victory in Iraq is achievable. It hasn't happened nearly as quickly as I hoped it would have. ... The conditions are tough in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad."
The president said his definition of victory remained the same: enabling the Iraqis to govern, sustain and defend themselves against rising violence there before U.S. forces withdraw. He indicated that this goal will remain at the center of any new policy that he announces in January.
"I'm not going to make predictions about what 2007 will look like in Iraq, except that it's going to require difficult choices and additional sacrifices, because the enemy is merciless and violent," Bush said. "I'm going to make you this promise: My administration will work with Republicans and Democrats to fashion a new way forward that can succeed in Iraq."
The possibility of boosting U.S. forces in Iraq conflicts with advice that the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recently offered. It proposed that the U.S. serve more of a training role for the growing Iraqi army and security forces and embed more U.S. forces with those troops, while drawing down the overall deployment of U.S. combat forces by the first quarter of 2008, if the security situation allows.
Even as Bush touts his commitment to seek a "bipartisan" solution to the way forward in Iraq, leaders of the new Democratic-controlled Congress that will convene in January are criticizing the president for considering committing more troops to a conflict that already has cost nearly 3,000 American lives.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Wednesday, "It is troubling to see that he still does not understand the need for urgent change in Iraq. The president seems lost within his own rhetoric. He is grasping for a victory his current policies have put out of reach and leaving our troops stuck policing a civil war."
On Wednesday, as he has done before, the president framed the conflict in Iraq as part of a broader struggle against terrorism. Yet analysts both inside and outside the administration have concluded that worsening sectarian violence inside Iraq is responsible for more casualties there than any acts of terrorism.
In an assessment of the last three months in Iraq, the Defense Department recently reported that "the most significant development in the Iraqi security environment was the growing role of Shia militants. It is likely that Shia militants were responsible for more civilian casualties than those associated with terrorist organizations. Shia militants were the most significant threat to the coalition presence in Baghdad and southern Iraq."
The Defense Department assessment said violence in Iraq poses "a grave threat to political progress." It echoed the Iraq Study Group, which called the situation "grave and deteriorating" and blamed violence more on sectarian warfare than on any terrorist acts, as dramatic and visible as some of those attacks are.
Bush, calling the war on terror "the calling of a new generation," said Wednesday that he is "inclined to believe" that both the Army and Marines will need an increase in their permanent size to confront that challenge. He said he ordered Gates to determine how that should take place "and report back to me as quickly as possible."
"We have an obligation to ensure our military is capable of sustaining this war over the long haul and performing the many tasks that we ask of them," Bush said.
Bush, conceding that the U.S. is neither winning nor losing in Iraq nearly four years after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 that overthrew Saddam Hussein, maintained that victory still is possible.
"I believe that we're going to win. I believe that - and by the way, if I didn't think that, I wouldn't have our troops there," Bush said. "We're going to succeed."
Bush was asked whether he has reached any "painful realization" about the war now - as he heads to Camp David this weekend for Christmas and then a week of retreat at his Texas ranch before returning to Washington on New Year's Day.
"The most painful aspect of my presidency has been knowing that good men and women have died in combat," Bush said. "I read about it every night, and my heart breaks for a mother, a father, a husband, wife or son and daughter. It just does. And so when you ask about pain, that's pain."
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