White House Reaffirms al-Maliki Support

President Bush pauses during a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convertion on Wednesday, August 22, 2007, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Evan Vucci - AP)

Slow political progress in Iraq is at the heart of the U.S. military troop buildup Bush announced in January. The president justified sending more troops to increase security and give Iraqi political leaders the breathing space to reconcile.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who addressed the VFW on Tuesday, reacted to Bush's speech, saying there is no military solution to Iraq's problems. He called for increased diplomacy and humanitarian efforts in the region and a "phased withdrawal of our forces that puts real pressure on the Iraqi government to act."

Bush's speech was the first of two speeches on Iraq in the run-up to the Sept. 15 report. Next Tuesday, Bush plans to discuss the war in the context of its implications for the broader Middle East at the annual American Legion convention in Reno, Nev.

"Many are frustrated by the pace of progress in Baghdad, and I can understand this," Bush told an estimated 5,800 VFW veterans and others in a convention hall.

He cited some political progress, saying the Iraqi government has passed about 60 pieces of legislation, and that while it has not passed a law to share oil revenues among the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis, revenues are being disbursed to the provinces. On the military front, Bush boasted that since the beginning of the year, U.S. troops have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al-Qaida terrorists and other extremists every month.

Bush, who has rejected Iraq-Vietnam comparisons in the past, linked the U.S. pullout back then to the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Foreign policy analysts took issue with Bush.

"The president emphasized the violence in the wake of American withdrawal from Vietnam. But this happened because the United States left too late, not too early," said Steven Simon, a Mideast expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It was the expansion of the war that opened the door to (Khmer Rouge leader) Pol Pot and the genocide of the Khmer Rouge. The longer you stay, the worse it gets."

Bush said the history of U.S. conflicts in Asia have shown that critics of the day are often wrong and that withdrawing from war should never be done for short-term gain.

"The ideals and interests that led America to help the Japanese turn defeat into democracy are the same that lead us to remain engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq," Bush said. "The defense strategy that refused to hand the South Koreans over to a totalitarian neighbor helped raise up an Asian Tiger that is a model for developing countries across the world, including the Middle East.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., dismissed Bush's position.

"Today our soldiers remain caught in the middle of a civil war and the president's strategy is still failing to deliver the political solution necessary for Iraq's stability," Reid said. "A change of course in Iraq is long overdue, and Congress will continue to fight for that change in the coming weeks."