*Isolated Bush faces rebellion over Iraq*

· Congress to reject plan
· Public against extra troops

Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Julian Borger
Friday January 12, 2007
The Guardian

President Bush talks to troops during a demonstration of infantry
training at Fort Benning, Georgia
President Bush meets troops during a demonstration of infantry training
at Fort Benning, Georgia. Photograph: Gerald Herbert/AP

President George Bush faced increasing isolation last night after his
much-vaunted new strategy for Iraq met with overwhelming public and
political opposition.

Mr Bush and his most senior staff embarked on a huge public relations
exercise to sell the plan to send an extra 20,000 troops to Iraq, aware
of formidable opposition in Congress which already promises an
embarrassing vote next week rejecting the new strategy.

In contrast to the deference the president enjoyed in his first six
years in office, he is confronting for the first time a combination of
reinvigorated Democrats and rebellious Republicans. Harry Reid, the
Democratic majority leader in the Senate, said: "In choosing to escalate
the civil war, the president virtually stands alone."

Mr Reid said he had the votes of about 10 dissident Republican senators,
and predicted that the passage of a resolution, with bipartisan support,
would mark "the beginning of the end of the war".

The wave of scepticism and outright hostility that greeted the
president's new strategy to pacify Baghdad and other parts of Iraq with
a beefed-up US force marks a significant change in America's attitude to
Iraq. A Washington Post-ABC poll carried out after Mr Bush's televised
address on Wednesday showed that 61% opposed the plan, while just 36%
backed it. In another poll by Associated Press and Ipsos, 70% of
Americans said they were against sending more troops.

Tony Blair yesterday welcomed the decision to send more troops to Iraq,
saying it "makes sense", but reaction otherwise was overwhelmingly negative.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, is to fly to the Middle
East today to try to win support for the plan from allied Arab
governments, though the immediate reaction in the region reflected the
widespread scepticism in America.

There was concern in many Middle East capitals at the apparent threat of
escalating the conflict to include Iran and Syria. Mr Bush, in his
speech, warned that the US would "seek out and destroy networks" of
insurgents moving into Iraq or based in these neighbouring countries.
While US commanders insisted yesterday that this did not signal an
intention to go into Iran or Syria, Ms Rice confirmed that all options
were open.

The Bush administration was at pains to stress the initiative had come
from the Iraqi government, led by Nouri al-Maliki. But Ms Rice, in an
unguarded moment, picked up on an open television microphone yesterday
morning, expressed concern that her forthcoming visit to Iraq might be
perceived as dictation of policy from Washington. "I don't want to
descend on the Maliki government and look like we, you know, just sort
of beat their brains out," she said.

In a taste of the new confrontational approach on Capitol Hill, Ms Rice
received a grilling when she appeared before the Senate foreign affairs
committee to explain the plan. The Democratic senator and 2008
presidential hopeful Joe Biden told her Mr Bush's plan was "a tragic
mistake". Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican congressmen were lining
up in TV studios to denounce the deployment of an extra 21,500 US troops
to Iraq.

Mr Bush flew to army headquarters at Fort Benning, Georgia, after an
emotional White House ceremony at which he handed over a posthumous
medal to the parents of a marine who threw his body on a grenade. In a
speech the president, who ignored recommendations from the bipartisan
Iraq Study Group for a phased withdrawal, insisted that the plan would
work. In a shift of strategy, the US is planning to go into previous
no-go zones in Baghdad, in particular the Shia militia stronghold of
Sadr City.

Mr Bush said the influx of more American troops, together with Iraqi
forces, would be enough to "clear, build and hold" militant areas. He
warned that the new strategy "is not going to yield immediate results.
It's going to take a while."

The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, stressed that the new deployment
may not, as had been widely believed, be short term. "It's viewed as a
temporary surge, but I think no one has a really clear idea of how long
that might be," Mr Gates said.

He also announced that to help with the strain imposed by Iraq on the US
in meeting its worldwide commitments, the overall strength of the army
would be increased by 92,000. He added that, whatever the differences
over the decision to go to war in 2003, "there seems to be broad
agreement that failure in Iraq would be a calamity for our nation of
lasting historical consequence".

The vote on the new strategy will be the first collision between the
White House and Congress since the Democrats secured control of both
houses in November. Although the congressional vote is purely symbolic,
the increasingly confident Democrats may move beyond that to try to
block funding for extra troops. Such a tactic would have been virtually
unthinkable even a week ago. Republicans loyal to Mr Bush may try to
block the vote by embarking on a filibuster.

Among the Republicans who may join the Democrats in support of the
resolution is Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam war veteran, who called the plan
"the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since
Vietnam". He said: "This is a dangerously wrong-headed strategy that
will drive America deeper into an unwinnable swamp at great cost. It is
wrong to place American troops in the middle of Iraq's civil war."

Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois who is among the frontrunners
for the Democratic presidential nomination and a long-term opponent of
the war, caught the mood of the Democrats when he said: "We are not
going to babysit a civil war."

Hillary Clinton, the other Democrat frontrunner, who has been careful so
far not to be too critical of the war, said Mr Bush "will continue to
take us down the wrong road - only faster".

Democrats, who control the Senate with 51 of 100 seats, would need 60
votes to clear a possible Republican procedural roadblock.

Qualified support for Mr Bush came from Senator John McCain, the leading
contender for the Republican presidential nomination, who has long
lobbied for extra troops. "I do not guarantee victory or success with
this new strategy," Mr McCain said. "If we do fail there's going to be
chaos in the region and I believe that we would pay an even heavier
price in American blood and treasure."

The British government said President Bush's announcement would not
affect its own plans to hand over authority in southern Iraq to Iraqi
forces and pull out British troops this year, but Mr Blair claimed the
divergent plans did not represent a US-UK rift over policy. "It is
really important that we don't either give that impression or have that
misunderstanding," the prime minister told West Country TV in Plymouth.

The defence secretary, Des Browne, acknowledged that a crackdown by
American troops on Shia militias in Baghdad could have a knock-on effect
in the south, triggering Shia reprisals, but he said there were plans to
deal with such an upsurge.

He expected Basra to be transferred to full Iraqi control this year,
enabling British troops to start pulling out.

"It is my expectation that we will be able to see that process through
and that over the course of the coming months and this year that we are
now expecting to see a reduction of troops by a matter of thousands," he
said.