Bush approval rating sinks as Iraq troop size goes up 21,500

ByJim Kuhnhenn
The Associated Press

The Bush administration worked last Thursday to persuade a skeptical Congress and American public to accept President Bush’s troop buildup plan as the last best chance for reversing Iraq’s slide.

“We cannot afford to fail,” said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The plan that Bush unveiled the night before in a prime-time address to the nation headed straight into a political gale in Congress, with Democrats, some Republicans and an organized anti-war movement lined up against it.

Bush’s new strategy increases U.S. forces in Iraq by 21,500 and demands greater cooperation from the Iraqi government.

Lawmakers were quick to pounce as Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other administration officials headed to Capitol Hill and Bush planned to visit Fort Benning, Ga. to sell the plan.

But Democratic options were limited. Party leaders have mulled a resolution of disapproval, but that would be nonbinding, and there also has been talk of attaching a host of conditions to approval of a spending bill to cover the costs of the buildup.

“We’re not going to baby sit a civil war,” Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told NBC’s “Today” Show. He said the Democratic-controlled Congress would not undercut troops already in Iraq but would explore ways to restrict the president from expanding the mission.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told CBS that since the new Democratic-led Congress convened last week, “questions are now being asked of this administration that haven’t been asked for almost four years.”

Democrats had few short-term options other than expressing their displeasure and forcing Democrats and Republicans alike to go on the record on a buildup.

A new AP-Ipsos poll found approval for Bush’s handling of Iraq hovering near a record low — 29 percent of Americans approve and 68 percent disapprove.

In a 20-minute prime time speech, Bush took responsibility for mistakes in Iraq and outlined a strategy he said would pull it out of its spiral of violence. The plan would increase the U.S. troop presence from the current 132,000 to 153,500 at a cost of $5.6 billion.

“If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home,” Bush said. He said failure in Iraq “would be a disaster for the United States.”

Congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans assailed the plan as an ill-advised escalation that would further mire the United States in Iraq. Several noted that the president’s strategy contradicted the advice of some of his generals.

But in remarks prepared for delivery at Thursday’s House Armed Services Committee hearing, Gates offered assurances that the military command stands behind the president.

“Your senior professional military officers in Iraq and in Washington believe in the efficacy of the strategy outlined by the president last night,” the defense secretary said.

Members of the panel voiced skepticism ahead of his appearance. Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo.

called Bush’s plan “three and a half years late and several hundred thousand troops short.”

House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, chided Democrats. “If Democrat leaders don’t support the president’s plan,” he said, “it’s their responsibility to put forward a plan of their own for achieving victory.”

Bush said the United States planned to hold Iraqi government to a series of benchmarks, though he did not say what the consequences for the Iraqis would be. Among those steps:

— The Iraqi government would take over security in all of the country’s provinces by November.

— Iraq would pass legislation to share oil revenue among all of Iraq’s ethnic groups.

— The Iraqi government would spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction.

— A free hand, promised by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, for Iraqi and American forces to enter any neighborhood seen as responsible for sectarian violence.

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