Bush: "We Can't Jeopardize Gains In Iraq"

Five years after launching the invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush strongly signaled today that he won't order troop withdrawals beyond those already planned because he refuses to "jeopardize the hard-fought gains" of the past year. As anti-war activists demonstrated around downtown Washington, D.C. the conservative Republican president spoke at the Pentagon to mark the anniversary of a war that has cost nearly 4,000 U.S. lives and roughly $500 billion. The president's address was part of a series of events the White House planned around the anniversary and next month's report from the top U.S. figures in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. That report will be the basis for President Bush's first troop-level decision in seven months.

"The battle in Iraq has been longer and harder and more costly than we anticipated," President Bush said. But, he added, before an audience of Pentagon brass, soldiers and diplomats: "The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just. And with your courage, the battle in Iraq will end in victory."

Democrats took issue with President Bush's stay-the-course suggestion. "With the war in Iraq entering its sixth year, Americans are rightly concerned about how much longer our nation must continue to sacrifice our security for the sake of an Iraqi government that is unwilling or unable to secure its own future," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a liberal Democrat. "Democrats will continue to push for an end to the war in Iraq and increased oversight of that war."

President George W. Bush repeatedly and directly linked the Iraq fight to the global battle against the al Qaida terror network. And he made some of his most expansive claims of success. He said the increase of 30,000 troops that he ordered to Iraq last year has turned "the situation in Iraq around." He also said that "Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al Qaida out." "The surge ... has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror," the president said. "We are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated."

The U.S. has about 158,000 troops in Iraq. That number is expected to drop to 140,000 by summer in drawdowns meant to erase all but about 8,000 troops from last year's increase. President Bush, who has successfully defied efforts by the Democratic-led Congress to force larger and faster withdrawals from Iraq, said the Democrats could unravel recent progress. "Having come so far and achieved so much, we are not going to let this happen," he said. The president criticized those who "still call for retreat" in the face of what he called undeniable successes.

It has been widely believed for weeks that President Bush will endorse an expected recommendation from General Petraeus next month for no additional troop reductions, beyond those already scheduled, until at least September. This pause in drawdowns would be designed to assess the impact of this round before allowing more. The surge was meant to tamp down sectarian violence in Iraq so that the country's leaders would have time to advance legislation considered key to reconciliation between rival Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. The gains on the battlefield have not been matched by dramatic political progress, and violence again may be increasing.

Vice President Dick Cheney compared the Bush administration's task now to President Abraham Lincoln's during the Civil War. "He never would have succeeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there," Vice President Cheney said of the late Republican president in an interview broadcast today on ABC's "Good Morning America."