Senator: Bush Plans Iraq Troop Surge

President Bush meets with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, not shown, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, Jan. 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) (Gerald Herbert - AP)

WASHINGTON -- President Bush will call for sending more American troops to Iraq to calm two troubled areas _ Baghdad, where sectarian violence flares daily, and the western Anbar Province, a base of the Sunni insurgency, a Republican senator said Monday. Another GOP lawmaker put the number of additional troops at 20,000.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, one of about 30 lawmakers who discussed Iraq with Bush at the White House on Monday, said the president offered no specifics on how many extra U.S. troops would be involved. The White House remained mum on the details of Bush's revamped strategy for the nearly four-year-old war, saying the president would announce them during a speech to the nation at 9 p.m. EST Wednesday.

"There will be surge in those two (areas), but it wasn't clear how much," Hutchison said. White House officials did not dispute her remarks.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said Bush told the senators that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki presented him with the plan for a U.S. troop increase several weeks ago when they met in Jordan. Bush indicated to the lawmakers he was willing to send more troops because the Iraqis pledged to meet certain criteria, which he did not outline.

"I wish I had the faith in Maliki that Bush did," Smith said of the prime minister, who has failed in the past to meet agreed-upon goals.

Smith said the president only hypothetically discussed increasing troop numbers by specific amounts, "but it was clear to me a decision has been made for 20,000 additional troops."

About 140,000 troops are in Iraq now.

Military officials have said that Bush is considering sending two to five more brigades _ between about 8,000 and 20,000 troops _ to fight alongside promised additions of Iraqi security forces. Some military officials familiar with the discussions say the president could initially dispatch 8,000 to 10,000 new troops to Baghdad, and possibly to Anbar Province, and leave himself the option of sending more later.

The war has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 members of the U.S. military and was a major factor in the Republican Party losing control of Congress in the November election. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told the president last week that "we do not believe that adding more U.S. combat troops contributes to success."

Some leading Republicans have echoed those concerns, as have top military officials who worry that sending more troops would overly strain the armed forces without assurances of success.

A central aim of the long-awaited address is to explain why success in Iraq matters to the average person. The White House knows the public is weary of war and has seen several previous campaigns by Bush to show changes in policy and win back support.

An intense campaign for the plan's rollout will unfold the day after the speech.