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WASHINGTON - President Bush told US lawmakers on Monday he had decided to send about 20,000 more troops to Iraq in a plan that Democrats denounced as an escalation of the war.
The White House said Bush would address Americans on his long-delayed new Iraq plan on Wednesday at 9pm EST (3pm Thursday NZT).
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Oregon Republican Sen. Gordon Smith, who a month ago said he could no longer support the war, was among senators who attended a White House meeting to discuss the president's emerging strategy for Iraq.
"It was clear to me that a decision has been made for a surge of, I suppose, 20,000 additional troops," Smith told reporters in a conference call after the meeting.
Smith said Bush told him and several other senators that the plan for the additional troops had originated with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Maliki had made commitments that the Iraqi government and military would take steps to strengthen security in exchange for more US troops, Smith said.
Seeking to salvage the US mission in an unpopular war that has lasted nearly four years, Bush's new plan is also expected to include setting "benchmarks" for the Iraqi government to meet aimed at easing sectarian violence and stabilizing the country.
It is also expected to contain a jobs programme likely to cost upwards of US$1 billion ($1.47 billion) with the goal of putting Iraqis back to work.
His plan seemed to be building on what the Bush administration has already sought to do in Iraq rather than a dramatic shift in course, including a pullback of US forces, recommended by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group last month.
Bush could be setting up a collision course with the new Democratic leadership in Congress, which says sending more troops to Iraq is an escalation and that it is time to start bringing forces home.
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said, "Democrats will not cut off funding for our troops" but would raise tough questions.
"We must know what the ground truth is in Iraq before we lose any more lives, cost any more money -- have a cost to our budget, our reputation," she said.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy questioned whether Congress would support funding for a troop increase.
"Any request for additional troops is going to have to be accompanied by a very, very strong justification," he said.
Soon after Bush's speech, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to go to the Middle East to try to promote stability in Iraq and Israeli-Palestinian peace - an area critics believe the administration has neglected.
Bush will try to sell his plan in a visit on Thursday to a military base at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Underlining the challenge facing Bush and Iraq's US-backed government, gunmen on Monday ambushed a bus carrying workers to Baghdad airport in the latest occurrence of sectarian violence that is killing hundreds of Iraqis a week.
A hospital source said 15 bodies and 15 wounded people had been brought to the hospital after the attack in the Sunni Arab neighbourhood of Amriya in western Baghdad. Police and an Interior Ministry source said four were killed and nine wounded.
The attack came two days after Maliki announced a major security plan for Baghdad, vowing to crush illegal armed groups "regardless of sect or politics" - suggesting he may be ready to tackle militias loyal to his fellow Shi'ites, as demanded by Washington and the once dominant Sunni minority.
US officials say the "benchmarks" to be outlined by Bush on Wednesday are aimed at prompting Maliki's government to act to bring the warring groups into a political reconciliation.
While even some Republicans were sceptical, a troop increase had some backers in Congress. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and the self-styled "independent Democrat" Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut urged Bush to send more troops.
"For far too long we have not had enough troops in Iraq to provide security," they wrote in a letter to Bush.
Without saying what Bush will announce, White House spokesman Tony Snow gave no sign that the president was being swayed by the Democratic opposition, saying his plan was "designed to lead to victory in Iraq."
Bush has already dismissed many of the main recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, whose report last month called for a pullback of most combat forces by early 2008 and direct talks with Iran and Syria.
In the latest move in a shake-up of his Iraq team ahead of Wednesday's announcement, the White House said Bush would nominate the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to represent Washington at the United Nations and replace him with Ryan Crocker, currently US ambassador to Pakistan.
- REUTERS
