Bush pledges to steer more U.S. troops into Baghda

[Neil D]

By Mark Silva

Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - On the day he welcomed the Iraqi prime minister to the White House for the first time, President Bush acknowledged Tuesday that the "terrible" violence in Baghdad would require deployment of more American troops in that war-torn capital.

The president's announcement signaled the depth of the security problem in a country he once had called a "beacon" for peace in the region, and it raised questions about the administration's hopes of bringing home significant numbers of soldiers by year's end.

It also was complicated by the fact that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki joined other Arab leaders by calling for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, while the president has consistently defended Israel's right to self-defense against attacks from Hezbollah.

"We are talking about the suffering of a people in a country," al-Maliki said of the situation in Lebanon. "What we are trying to do is to stop the killing and the destruction" to pave a way for diplomatic solutions, he said. "And I also emphasized the importance of immediate cease-fire."

Bush maintains that Lebanon is facing the same threat as Iraq: the determination of terrorists to destabilize nascent democracies.

"The terrorists are afraid of democracies," Bush said. "That's the ultimate challenge facing Iraq and Lebanon and the Palestinian territories."

As Bush has advocated it, the establishment of a democratically elected government in Iraq was supposed to serve as an example for freedom throughout the Middle East and help quell the violence that has plagued Iraq over the past two years.

But with sectarian violence claiming 100 lives a day in Iraq, Bush pledged to steer more U.S. troops into Baghdad, in addition to "embedding" U.S. military police with Iraqi forces attempting to secure the city.

About 30,000 of the 127,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are currently stationed in Baghdad, but "we don't know, at this point," how many more will move there, said National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

"Obviously, the violence in Baghdad is still terrible," Bush said with al-Maliki by his side, "and therefore there needs to be more troops."

Asked how the redeployment might affect the administration's hopes of beginning significant troop withdrawals from Iraq by year's end, Bush said that remains unclear.

"One of the reasons why you trust the commanders on the ground is because there needs to be flexibility," said Bush, who has insisted that troop deployments will be based on "conditions on the ground.

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