President George W. Bush, faced with growing calls to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, pleaded with Americans for patience and cited progress in the past two months
- From: Chim <ChimS1@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 14:37:10 -0700
Bush pleads for more patience for Iraq war efforts
By Jeremy Pelofsky
Sat Aug 25, 11:09 AM ET
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, faced with
growing calls to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, pleaded with
Americans on Saturday for patience and cited progress in the past two
months.
"The success of the past couple of months have shown that conditions
on the ground can change -- and they are changing," he said in his
weekly radio address. "We cannot expect the new strategy we are
carrying out to bring success overnight."
Bush is facing mounting pressure from Democrats and a senior
Republican lawmaker to begin pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq to show
the government there that the American commitment is not open-ended.
Earlier this week, Bush drew parallels to the Vietnam War, raising the
example of the emergence of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and violence
in Vietnam after U.S. troops pulled out to warn of the consequences of
leaving Iraq.
But, he acknowledged that despite increasing the number of troops in
Iraq to tamp down the unrelenting violence, there was growing
frustration that the government had not made much progress on
political goals.
Still, Bush argued that young men were signing up for the Iraqi
military, police were patrolling the streets and more operations with
both U.S.-led troops and Iraqi forces were being conducted.
On Thursday, he suffered a setback when Sen. John Warner of Virginia,
an influential congressional voice on military affairs in Bush's
Republican Party, urged for an initial pullout of 5,000 troops who
would be home by December.
Warner declined to back setting a withdrawal timetable but Democrats
are expected next month to ratchet up pressure to do just that.
In about three weeks, Congress will receive a pivotal report on the
state of war in Iraq by the U.S. commander on the ground in Iraq, Gen.
David Petraeus, and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, which
could trigger a change in Iraq policy.
Democrats argued the failures of the Vietnam War should not be ignored
as the United States tries to chart its future course in Iraq but that
U.S. soldiers could no longer bear the brunt of the failures by the
Iraqi government.
"We can't expect our soldiers to continue to risk their lives
especially when the Iraqi leaders themselves show no interest in
achieving a peaceful political solution," Max Cleland, a former
Democratic senator from Georgia and a Vietnam veteran, said in his
party's weekly radio address.
Bush on Tuesday will try to build his case further for remaining in
Iraq when he speaks to the American Legion annual convention in Reno,
Nevada, the second of two such speeches.
"I will focus on the Middle East and why the rise of a free and
democratic Iraq is critical to the future of this vital region and to
our Nation's security," Bush said.
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