Pessimism over Iraq deepens as Bush weighs his next move - Bush speech delayed until New Year to get review 'done right'

Pessimism over Iraq deepens as Bush weighs his next move - Bush speech delayed until New Year to get review 'done right'
By Brian Knowlton
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: December 12, 2006

WASHINGTON: As President George W. Bush on Tuesday continued his high-profile exploration of expert views on Iraq, several new opinion surveys showed a dramatic deepening of American pessimism about the war and the president's handling of it. The White House said Bush would delay a planned major speech on Iraq until the New Year.

The speech had been expected by the end of next week, but a White House spokesman said the delay should not be seen as a reflection of indecision or a major shift in direction.

The review and decision process "requires findings of fact, it requires tactical calculations, it involves matters of state within the region," said Gordon Johndroe, a National Security Council spokesman. He added: "The key here is to get it done right."

Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said Bush knew the general directions he would take in the speech but wanted time to work out the details.

The president also wanted to give the incoming defense secretary, Robert Gates, time to weigh in, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Gates is to take office Monday.

Wayne Downing, a retired U.S. general who was one of five experts to meet Monday with Bush, said Tuesday that "the impression I had was there will be some changes."

"I think you're going to see some new things come out," he said on NBC-TV.

What those may be remains far from clear. The president has distanced himself from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's core recommendations that most U.S. combat troops be withdrawn by early 2008 and that the United States consult with Iran and Syria on stabilizing Iraq. He has been more receptive to the call for a new push for an Israel- Palestinian peace agreement.

The debate spread to Europe on Tuesday, where Bush's key Iraq war ally, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, appeared to have toughened his tone against Iran since meeting Thursday with Bush, and where Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said that there could be no Middle East peace without Syrian involvement.

But as Bush continued his consultations — he spoke by videoconference to American military commanders in Iraq before conferring in person with the Iraqi vice president, and he was preparing for talks at the Pentagon on Wednesday — the opinion polls underscored the urgency of his search for "a new way forward."

Public opposition to this war has edged beyond the strongest levels registered to the Vietnam War, one poll indicated. Another survey pointed to a stunning collapse in support among the president's fellow Republicans for his conduct of the war.

The continuing violence in Iraq, victories by Democrats in the Nov. 7 elections and the grim description by the study group of a "grave and deteriorating" situation in Iraq all appeared to play a role.

Seventy percent of Americans told pollsters for CBS that the war was going badly — the largest percentage ever in that survey — and only 4 percent said the United States should stay with the same tactics. Half of those surveyed said the administration should move to end U.S. involvement altogether.

Sixty percent told Washington Post/ABC News pollsters that the war was not worth fighting. Last month, 70 percent of Republicans approved of Bush's handling of the war. Now, CBS found, only 47 percent do.

But 75 percent of respondents of a USA Today/Gallup poll supported the key proposals of the Iraq Study Group.

Sixty-two percent of respondents in the CBS poll said that sending troops to Iraq had been a mistake. Gallup polls in the early 1970s found 60 percent saying that sending troops to Vietnam had been a mistake.

Just as Bush has appeared skeptical of the study group's call for an early 2008 pullout and talks with Iran and Syria, the five experts invited Monday to meet with him also disagreed with those goals, The Washington Post reported.

While the president welcomed the bipartisan report, his public tone and language appear to have shifted little: He still speaks of a long-term struggle and a commitment to Iraq. The worldwide fight against extremists and radicals, he said Monday, "is really the calling of our time." Bush faces an intensely complicated, high-stakes juggling act in Iraq. He is pressed at home to find better approaches quickly — if not withdrawing, then threatening withdrawal to goad the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to more decisive action.

But some of his military and political advisers — seconded by many American conservatives — have called a hasty withdrawal a recipe for disaster, and engagement with Iran and Syria pointless.

During Bush's meeting with Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi of Iraq, neither man used the word "victory" to describe his goals. The president said his objective was "to help the Iraqi government deal with the extremists and killers" and "to help your government be effective." Hashemi, a Sunni who has criticized the inability of the Shiite-led government to control violence, said he shared the president's view that "there is no way but success in Iraq."

"There is," he said, "a light in the corridor."

Meantime, debate on the call for talks with Iran and Syria — received coolly by the administration — was getting started in Europe.

Blair, who had advocated such talks before his Oval Office meeting Thursday with Bush, appeared Tuesday to have hardened his stance, at least on Iran.

"Iran is deliberately causing maximum problems for moderate governments and for ourselves in the region — in Palestine, in Lebanon and in Iraq," he said. Blair said there was "little point" in involving Iran or Syria "unless they are prepared to be constructive," the BBC reported.

But in Berlin, Merkel said that it would be impossible to forge Middle East peace without involving Syria, Reuters reported. The chancellor spoke a week after sending Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Damascus for talks.

"It is important that we tell Syria what expectations we have of it," she said. "I don't believe that one can arrive at a comprehensive peace solution in the Middle East without bringing in Syria in some way."

On Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discussed the U.S. reservations.

"If it's in Syria's interest to stabilize Iraq, then they'll do it," she said. But Rice indicated that the United States was not ready to bargain for Syrian help at the cost, for example, of giving Syria a pass on its involvement in Lebanon.

With the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in Beirut under siege by thousands of protesters organized by the Syrian-backed Hezbollah movement, she said, there should be no doubt about full American support for the elected government.

"In no way is the United States going to get into a situation where it is even a conceivable notion on the part of Syria or Iran that the future of Lebanon would somehow be compromised for other interests of the United States," she told Agence France-Presse.