Bush to Add 21,500 Troops In an Effort to Stabilize Iraq

"Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons," Bush said. "There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does."

Bush said Maliki has pledged that political interference with military operations "will not be tolerated."

The president and his top advisers said they expect their new approach to succeed where previous ones did not because of a new commitment from Maliki to provide resources and crack down on violent sectarian militias, even Shiite ones. But they are placing great faith in an untested Iraqi government that has not demonstrated a capacity to bridge the sectarian divisions that have caused an upsurge in violence over the past year.

Even with the troop increase, the resulting total of about 153,000 U.S. forces in Iraq will amount to less than the roughly 165,000 deployed in December 2005, the high-water mark for U.S. troop strength in Iraq.

x U.S. and Iraqi forces began a plan last summer to rid Baghdad of illegal militias and death squads that were fomenting sectarian violence, but the U.S.-designed effort faltered when Iraq failed to produce two-thirds of the troops Maliki had pledged. The difference now, U.S. officials say, is that Maliki put forward the plan himself and wants Iraq to take the lead, with a goal of assuming military command of the entire country in November.x Iraq now has control over only three of its 18 provinces.

Bush said he will convene a bipartisan group of lawmakers to work on anti-terrorism policies, including increasing the size of the military. He also sounded a note of flexibility, saying that if lawmakers have improvements that can be made "we will make them."

But on Capitol Hill yesterday, sentiment seemed to harden against the president on Iraq in the opposition party, even among the most hawkish Democrats.

Both Senate and House Democrats moved toward introducing resolutions of disapproval, with House Democrats contemplating simply introducing the president's speech and asking members to vote for or against it. Democratic leaders made it clear that such nonbinding resolutions would be only a first step. Senior Democrats said that if sentiment against the president continues to grow, they will try to use their power of the purse to quell what they call an escalation.

Staff writers Josh White and Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report.