Bush Tells Nation He Will Begin to Roll Back 'Surge'

The net effect of the announced reductions will be to return the overall force in Iraq to close to where it was at the beginning of the year. The shift will start this month when a Marine expeditionary unit leaves Anbar province without being replaced. An Army brigade will leave Iraq in mid-December. Four other brigades and two Marine battalions will then be pulled out by mid-July, about one month earlier than the last of the "surge" troops would have left anyway under current deployment rules.

Neither Petraeus nor White House aides would say how many troops that would involve, but typical force sizes for such units would add up to about 21,700, about the same number Bush initially announced in January that he was sending to Iraq. Petraeus and Bush made no commitments to pulling out another 8,000 support troops who later became part of the buildup, although officials said at least some of them probably would come home, too.

The president's address came amid a fierce national debate punctuated by new television ads. A group called Freedom's Watch, run by former Bush aides, launched a new commercial yesterday assailing the antiwar MoveOn.org for an attack on Petraeus, calling it "despicable" and wrong. "America and the forces of freedom are winning," the ad said. "MoveOn is losing."

While Bush reached out to Democrats last night, his real targets were congressional Republicans, who despite doubts about the war have stood with him on key votes this year and can sustain any veto. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the president's withdrawal of some forces "meets a demand that many of my members have been looking for" and pronounced himself "very optimistic" that this would ease concerns on the Republican side. "We've turned the corner on Iraq," McConnell said.

Other Republicans were not convinced. "If the Iraqis fail to take appropriate action to accomplish political settlement within their country, the United States should consider dramatically accelerating its disengagement," said Rep. Phil English (Pa.), a moderate who has so far stuck with the president.

The White House played down the updated report it will send Congress today on progress toward the 18 benchmarks. An interim report in July concluded that Iraq had made "satisfactory" progress toward eight goals. Sources familiar with the new report said yesterday that it will declare satisfactory progress in a ninth category -- a law allowing low-level members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party back into the government.

The president's Oval Office speech came hours after a severe blow to his strategy on the ground in Iraq. The Sunni tribal leader who led the revolt against al-Qaeda extremists in Anbar province was killed by a bomb. Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, known as the father of the "Anbar Awakening," sat next to Bush during his visit to Iraq just 10 days ago, and the success he helped inspire in Anbar has been a major selling point for Petraeus and Bush.

Abu Risha had deeply impressed Bush during their meeting. "Mr. President, we are allies with you here in Iraq against al-Qaeda and Iran," he told Bush, according to a source who was there. "We are ready to fight with you against terrorists here, and if you want, also in Afghanistan."

Military and administration officials sought to put the best face on the blow, with one emphasizing that the Anbar movement was not "one guy deep." Petraeus said there is "a sufficient, beyond critical mass" of leaders in the Euphrates Valley to take Sattar's place. "This is not going to intimidate the sheiks," he said. "I think it will enrage them." But he acknowledged the role Sattar had played as the person who almost single-handedly built the movement. "He had reached out to other [Sunni] groups" even as he "reached across ethno-sectarian divides."

In an interview, Petraeus offered clues to secret planning that he did not mention during his congressional testimony. He described Iraq as a quilt in which secure "patches" will be added gradually until they fill the country and can finally be stitched together by June 2009. "Then you have a sustainable system," he said. "Then you have an Iraq."

A map prepared to illustrate the concept showed Iraq today as a blank space with several discrete "patches" in Anbar and in the northern and southern parts of the country. On a second map labeled "Intermediate Term. NLT [No Later Than] June 2009," the entire country was covered with patches. An Iraqi national flag covered a third, undated map, signaling when Iraq would be entirely in charge of its own fate.