United States President George Bush has begun a major campaign to gain public support for his plan to increase US troops in Iraq, US news media reported on Tuesday.
Bush met with more than 30 Republican Party senators, several of whom confirmed reports that the president plans to increase the number of US troops in Iraq by at least 20 000 to help pacify Baghdad.
Bush believes that sectarian violence in Iraq must first be quelled so the political process can be restored, and is convinced that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki strongly supports the US plans, the Washington Post reported.
The proposed troop increase will be presented on Saturday by Maliki as supporting a plan to pacify Baghdad, the Post reported.
The plan calls for joint US-Iraqi forces to confront all illegal armed factions, including radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
It is unclear how the plan would affect the Iraqi Parliament’s pro-Sadr legislators, who are a key part of Malaki’s ruling coalition.
Iraqi forces, however, will take the lead in Sadr City, Baghdad’s sprawling Shi’ite slum and a hotbed of Mahdi Army support, a US official briefed on the plan told the Post.
Bush will also announce expanded US civilian and military teams to be deployed immediately into cleared neighbourhoods.
“An increase in troops is not a strategy in and of itself,” a senior White House official told the Post. “It is a tactic to make the new strategy successful.”
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told the New York Times that Bush “emphasised that this is not just about more troops”.
“That’s just one small component of it. It’s a change in economic, military and political strategy,” Graham said.
Bush-friendly Republicans controlled the US Congress until opposition Democrats gained majorities in both chambers following the November 7 election, largely seen as a referendum on the Iraq war. — AFP