ARAB-US RELATIONS - Jan 10 - Bush Pledges 21,500 More Troops For Iraq.

Bush unveils what many see as his last chance to salvage the deteriorating situation in Iraq with the pledge of 21,500 new US troops and an admission the current strategy was failing. In a live broad cast Bush told Americans: Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me. It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq. In our discussions we all agreed that there is no magic formula for success in Iraq. One message came through loud and clear: Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the US". Bush told Americans that previous efforts to stabilise Baghdad had failed for two reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighbourhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have". Bush's "new way forward", which he insisted would still result in victory, ran into strong Democratic opposition even before it had been made public. Democratic leaders said the much-anticipated troop "surge" went against the verdict of congressional elections last November and would be challenged by resolutions that could be tabled as early as Jan 11. They would be non-binding but would signal an end to the bipartisan honeymoon that both the White House and Democrats had promised. The Democrats have urged Bush to provide a timeline for the withdrawal of US troops, which Bush on Jan 10 declined to do. "If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home", he said. The new approach is built on a plan drawn up by Iraq's PM Nuri al-Maliki, that is aimed at stabilising the level of sectarian violence in Baghdad, which is the epicentre of Iraq's emerging civil war. Officials say that Maliki has promised to follow a series of performance "benchmarks" that were drawn up in Baghdad. Bush declined to offer a timeline for Iraq to meet its self-imposed benchmarks. But he said America's commitment to Iraq would not be "open-ended". "The president is trying to put a good face on the reality", said Jack Reed, a Democratic senator. "So far the Iraqis have not responded to our request to perform. I'm very sceptical these benchmarks will be anything more than they've been in the past - just platitudes that are ignored". A senior US administration official said there would be new rules of engagement for Iraqi and US commanders that would enable them to succeed where previous efforts to pacify Iraq's capital had failed - most recently last summer. Iraq's government would send three new brigades into Baghdad within the next month in addition to the six already there. The US would add five brigades to its Baghdad presence. The US would also send an additional 4,000 troops to Anbar province, which is the seat of Al Qaeda in Iraq. The overall level of US forces in Iraq will rise from 132,000 to more than 150,000 - although officials did not say by when. "This will be an Iraqi plan that will be Iraqi-led and we believe will fix the problem", said the official "If our previous strategy was "clear, hold and build" - we cleared, did not hold and the build never arrived". Senior US officials also ruled out following the regional "diplomatic offensive" that had been recommended in the bipartisan ISG report last month. The report, which was led by the former State Secretary James Baker, and the former Democratic lawmaker Lee Hamilton, recommended that Bush open talks with Iran and Syria in particular. Following the speech Senator Ted Kennedy, Democrat from Massachusetts, said: What we really ought to be having at this time is a surge of political initiatives, rather than a surge of military initiatives". On Jan 11 a US official said that a large proportion of the 79 ISG recommendations had been accepted by Bush including the advice that more US army trainers were embedded "deep down at the company level" of the Iraqi military. State Sec Condoleezza Rice, will testify on Capitol Hill about Bush's new way forward in Iraq.