Bush orders halt to troop withdrawals

[Soldier4Christ]

Bush orders halt to troop withdrawals
President also cuts tours of duty in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months

President Bush on Thursday ordered a halt in U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq after July, embracing the recommendation of his top commander in the war and saying that Gen. David Petraeus will “have all the time he needs.”

Bush endorsed Petraeus' advice of completing a limited withdrawal of combat troops by July but then impose a 45-day freeze before considering more possible cuts.

That virtually guarantees that more than 100,000 servicemen and women will still be in the war zone when the next president takes office next January.
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In another major decision, the president announced he will seek to relieve the heavy strain on the Army by reducing the length of combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan to 12 months, down from the current level of 15 months. He said the change would take effect on Aug. 1, and would affect U.S. forces already deployed on the front lines.

In a report on the progress in Iraq five years after the fall of Baghdad, Bush said U.S. forces have made major gains since he ordered a buildup of about 30,000 U.S. forces last year. “We have renewed and revived the prospect of success” the president said.

Bush delivered his remarks in the Cross Hall of the White House before an audience of veterans’ service groups and Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The president’s decision had been foreshadowed by two days of testimony before a skeptical Congress by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad. Now in its sixth year, the war has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 U.S. troops and cost more than $500 billion.

Bush said the United States would proceed with planned drawdowns of U.S. forces, bringing home the 30,000 troops he sent to combat sectarian violence. The additional troops were also intended to help restore basic security and provide a sense of calm to allow Iraqi leaders to attempt to achieve political reconciliation.

While acknowledging that “serious and complex problems remain in Iraq,” Bush said that “a major strategic shift” has occurred since the buildup.

“Today we have the initiative,” the president said.

Message to Congress
Bush also called on Congress to send him a spending bill for Iraq that does not include any timetables for troop withdrawals or exceed the $108 billion he has requested. Last spring, Congress added $17 billion in unrequested domestic add-ons such as children’s health care, homeland security and heating subsidies.

Now, Democrats are eyeing using this year’s war funding bill to stimulate the economy with road-building funds, additional unemployment benefits, a summer jobs program and additional food stamp benefits. The measure is slated to advance later this spring.

Bush said he would veto the spending measure if Congress fails to meet his conditions.

“While this war is difficult, it is not endless,” Bush said in a message directed to troops, but surely to the American public as well.

The president said that only as conditions in Iraq improve will he bring more troops home, a policy he calls “return on success.”

“The day will come when Iraq is a capable partner of the United States,” Bush said. “The day will come when Iraq’s a stable democracy that helps fight our common enemies and promote our common interests in the Middle East.”

“And when that day arrives, you’ll come home with pride in your success,” Bush said to the military and U.S. civilians in Iraq.

Bush earlier had breakfast with Petraeus and Crocker. That followed two days of televised exchanges on Capitol Hill that Petraeus and Crocker had with lawmakers, including the three senators vying to become next occupant of the Oval Office: Republican John McCain and Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Petraeus told Congress that it’s too early to talk about future drawdowns because the situation in Iraq remains fragile, and that while security has improved and Iraqi forces are shouldering more of the fight against extremists, Iraq still could descend again into chaos.

Embracing Petraeus’ recommendation, Bush refrained from ordering any more troop cutbacks before mid- to late-September at the earliest. Even then, flare-ups in violence and a need to keep Iraq’s provincial elections safe this fall could mean the president will not be able to withdraw any more troops until late this year, if at all.

Bush made the case that his troop buildup has succeeded in reducing violence in Iraq, despite recent increases in Baghdad and Basra.
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Pelosi slams Bush
Even before Bush made his announcement, war critics went on the attack.

“We are six years into a war that has claimed more than 4,000 American lives ... cost nearly a trillion dollars that could have been used to meet urgent needs at home and damaged the reputation of the United States in the eyes of the world,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote to Bush in a letter she released late Wednesday. “General Petraeus admitted on Tuesday that ‘we haven’t turned any corners, we haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel’ in Iraq.

“The American people are entitled to know when they will receive a more hopeful report than the one provided by General Petraeus, and what changes in policy you will make to achieve it before you leave office,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said.

She added that Bush needs to tell the American people how keeping 140,000 troops in Iraq will help reduce the threat the nation faces because the U.S. military is bogged down in Iraq, what conditions will be needed for further troop withdrawals beyond July and how much longer the threat from extremists hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border will be allowed to “grow because our resource commitment in Iraq makes is impossible to respond adequately.”

After Petraeus’ war update in September, Bush said the principle guiding his decisions on troop levels was “return on success.” He said then that the additional troops he ordered to Iraq had improved security enough that they could be pulled out by the end of July. That would bring the current level of 160,000 troops in Iraq now to about 140,000 in July.

Beyond that, Petraeus wants a 45-day period of “consolidation and evaluation,” to be followed by an indefinite period of assessment before he would recommend any further pullouts.