Eight weeks before the November 4 US elections, Bush was to lay out his plans in a 9:55 am (1355 GMT) speech to the US National Defense University, a senior US official said on condition of anonymity Monday.

And White House spokeswoman Dana Perino indicated that Bush would probably unveil his decision on Tuesday -- though neither official offered details of what the president had decided to do.

But the US president was expected to adopt the recommendations of the top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and other top military and national security aides.

Senior US officials have said that the advice includes a call for a modest US troop reduction of about 8,000 soldiers between now and March 2009, six years after Bush ordered the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

That would leave about 145,000 US troops there -- more than there were in January 2007 when Bush announced he was sending roughly 30,000 more US soldiers to Iraq in a high-stakes bid to quell bloody sectarian violence.

Most of the forces deployed as part of what has come to be known as the "surge" were withdrawn by August 2008 in the face of a stark drop in violence in Iraq.

The issue of possible US troop withdrawals from Iraq looms large over the US presidential election.

Bush's preferred successor, Senator John McCain, has pinned his hopes on his early and fervent support of the so-called US troop "surge" that has helped bring down once-overwhelming levels of sectarian violence.

McCain's rival, Democrat Barack Obama, has pledged to begin troop withdrawals immediately if elected, and foresees most combat troops being out of Iraq by late 2010.

Recent polls show two out of three Americans oppose the war and want to see a quick withdrawal, but many view the "surge" as a success story, and Bush has repeatedly said that US politics will not shape his decision.

But the US president now faces freshly confident Iraqi leaders who are calling for a precise date for US forces to leave -- the kind of timetable Bush has long described as a recipe for a catastrophic defeat.

The issue has been one of the sticking points in talks between Washington and Baghdad on an accord laying out the rights and responsibilities of US troops after the UN mandate for the occupation lapses in December.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says the deal is all but done, and that it calls for foreign forces to be gone from his war-torn country by 2011.

Petraeus said in a newspaper interview last week that all US combat troops may be out of Baghdad by July 2009.

Bush's speech on Tuesday comes amid plans to shore up NATO-led and other international forces in Afghanistan with a US army brigade and a Marines battalion -- roughly 4,500 more soldiers.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
Iraq: The first technology war of the 21st century

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News