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Iraq ‘Fortified’ 
We made mistakes: Bush 
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

President George W. Bush Wednesday night took responsibility for "mistakes" made in Iraq and announced a surge of more than 21,000 US troops into the war-ravaged country, a move Democrats promptly criticised.

Noting there is “no magic formula for success in Iraq,” Mr Bush warned in a prime-time address to the nation, "Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States." He admitted the violence - particularly in Baghdad - in 2006, "overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al-Qaida terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognised the mortal danger that Iraq's elections posed for their cause. And they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis.

They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam — the Golden Mosque of Samarra — in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate.

Their strategy worked. Noting the ongoing cycle of violence, one his administration has been loath to term a civil war, Mr Bush said the situation in Iraq was "unacceptable" to him and the American people.

“Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me,” he added.

The President said past efforts to secure Baghdad had failed for two principal reasons: “There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.”

Analysts contend the main reason for the failure is Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's unwillingness to subdue the militias of his main Shia supporter Sheikh Muqtada al-Sadr. Of the 21,000 additional troops 4,000 will be sent to the restive Anbar province.

Mr Bush said he had told Iraq’s leaders the US commitment was “not open-ended.” The new strategy is based on six fundamental elements - let the Iraqis lead; help Iraqis protect the population; isolate extremists; create space for political progress; diversify political and economic efforts; and situate the strategy in a regional approach.

“If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people - and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people,” he warned.

Delivering the Democrats’ official response to the address, Illinois Senator Richard Durbin said, “Escalation of this war is not the change the American people called for in the last election.”

Congressman Tom Lantos, a California Democrat and chairman of the newly renamed House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said US “efforts in Iraq are a mess, and throwing in more troops will not improve it.”

Top Democrats have called for a phased reduction of US presence in Iraq.

Criticising Mr Bush for not listening to advice from his military commanders to commit sufficient troops at the start of the war in 2003, Mr Lantos said, “You cannot unscramble an omelette. And you certainly can’t make it any more palatable by adding more of the same ingredients.”

“With Iraq sliding into civil war and the Iraqi government still not showing sufficient determination to disarm the militias, we need to involve other parties in the region to take more responsibility for creating a stable Iraq with lasting and meaningful reconstruction,” the Congressman suggested.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has planned vigorous oversight of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy. On Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will testify on this policy before the House panel. She will be followed on January 17 by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and Jim Hamilton from the Iraq Study Group on January 19.

A terrorism analyst who has been briefing the White House told The Tribune on the condition of anonymity that “there is no more better propaganda for the jihad than an American soldier killing a Muslim or even facing off against one... Jihadis die for glory and Bush is giving them 20,000 new paths for glory.”

He said the president had ordered the surge because “he does not want to admit defeat. It is a case of personal hubris.”

Peter Grier, the Christian Science Monitor’s veteran Pentagon correspondent, told The Tribune, “An open-ended commitment of 50,000 or more troops might make a military difference. The sort of thing that’s being talked about - 20,000 or so - is a half measure that will provoke debate at home while providing very limited help in Iraq.”

As the war progressed US military commanders have opposed increasing troop levels. Thomas Lippman, a former West Asia bureau chief with the Washington Post, suggested, “they were only saying what the White House at that time wanted them to say.”

“We can have a bloody catastrophe in Iraq with the loss of more American lives, or we can have a bloody catastrophe in Iraq without the loss of more American lives. (As an American) I prefer the latter,” Mr Lippman told The Tribune.

While a bipartisan Iraq Study Group late last year suggested, among other things, that the US engage Iran and Syria to help calm Iraq, Mr Bush on Wednesday pointedly accused Iran of backing some radical Shia elements, which had formed death squads.

The White House believes America’s enemies throughout West Asia are trying to defeat it in Iraq.

Stepping back now would make the problems in Iraq more lethal, and make US troops fight an uglier battle than the one they are in now, officials say.

A senior administration official said the President had conducted an extensive review to develop the new strategy. Two things became clear, the official said, “one, there are no silver bullets here, and secondly, America cannot afford to fail, but we must succeed.”