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US President George W. Bush will meet with top generals as he plows ahead with his unpopular new Iraq war strategy despite growing opposition within his own Republican Party.
Bush's meeting with the officers comes as he faces a Democratic-controlled Congress intent on using its legislative might to force the president into reconsidering his plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved this week a no-confidence resolution slamming Bush's decision to deploy extra troops, while Senator John Warner, a Republican stalwart, offered his own bill criticizing the plan.
The White House played down Wednesday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote on the non-binding resolution that said Bush's plan was “not in the national interest,” which came a day after Bush pleaded with lawmakers to “give it a chance to work” during his annual State of the Union speech to Congress.
“The president understands that people have political concerns. What he has said is, let's give this a chance — this plan a chance to work,” Bush spokesman Tony Snow said.
The resolution, which could come up for a full Senate vote next week, is non-binding but it could set the stage for one of the roughest clashes between lawmakers and the unpopular president.
Warner, an influential lawmaker on military affairs, and other Republicans joined the ranks of skeptics this week, proposing a more moderate resolution that “disagrees” with the plan and asks Bush to consider alternatives.
But despite the growing chorus of opposition to the plan, the White House said Bush was committed to it.
“The president recognizes that that way forward has a lot of resistance in the Democratic Party but also to some degree in the Republican Party,” his chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, told National Public Radio Thursday.
“He feels very strongly that it is the right way forward, the very best chance we have to achieve success in Iraq, which is critical to success in the war on terror,” he said.
Bolten also criticized the resolutions.
“We don't think these hortatory resolutions are at all helpful either to … finding a resolution or to the impression that the Iraqi people, our enemies, or our troops have of the United States,” he said.
Amid the political battle, Bush was to meet Friday with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Peter Pace, and the incoming US commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General David Petraeus.
The 25-member Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday unanimously approved Petraeus' nomination, which now goes to the full Senate, to command the 132,000 US soldiers in Iraq.
In a sign of the stiff task facing US and Iraqi troops, a wave of bombings hit Baghdad markets Thursday, killing at least 32 people.
And another part of Bush's strategy took a hit Thursday, as lawmakers demanded assurances over a one-billion-dollar reconstruction aid package amid fears it could fall prey to rampant corruption.
A day after the no-confidence resolution on the troop deployment, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee took aim at the plan's economic and jobs component.
“For me to go back to my home constituents and justify voting again … for 'reconstruction monies,' I'd better have a much, much tighter understanding and be able to demonstrate with specificity to my constituents why I think this may work,” said the committee's Democratic chairman, Senator Joseph Biden.
Bush said when he unveiled his new plan this month he would ask Congress to provide an additional 1.2 billion dollars in economic and reconstruction aid for Iraq. The Iraqi government has pledged to add a further 10 billion dollars of its own funds.
The plan will see a doubling of the number of US-led provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) which operate across the country, in local communities, from 10 to 20.
But many critics of the plan are highly skeptical the economic aid will ever filter down to badly needed projects in Iraq, and fear it could fall prey to rampant corruption in Iraq or not have much impact in the chaotic security environment.
David Satterfield, who works for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as coordinator for Iraq policy, said that the onus was on Iraqis to take the lead in rebuilding.
“They need help from outside, they should get that help, but they're going to have to take the lead on this, this is not a US challenge,” he said.
