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President George W. Bush faced a pitched battle with US lawmakers over his plan to send more troops to Iraq, as even a top member of his Republican Party dismissed the strategy as the worst blunder since Vietnam.
Bush and top aides came under heavy criticism as they launched a hard sell to convince a nation weary of the war — which has claimed more than 3,000 US lives — that the last-ditch bid to step up the battle can work.
They warned the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was on “borrowed time” and promised to hold his government to its end of the bargain to tackle sectarian violence before US troops pour into Baghdad.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced a fearsome grilling by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee over the plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq, and Bush's warning US soldiers would confront Iranian and Syrian elements there.
“I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder since Vietnam, if it is carried out,” said Republican Senator Chuck Hagel.
Senator Joseph Biden, who presided over the committee's first inquisition of a senior administration figure since Democrats took the reins of Congress last week, said Americans' prayers for a workable strategy had not been met.
“I believe the president's strategy is not a solution, Secretary Rice. I believe it's a tragic mistake,” Biden said.
“The result will be the loss of more American lives and our military stretched to the breaking point with little prospect of success.”
Democrats said Wednesday they would hold votes on the Bush plan, but stopped short of vowing to cut off war funding.
The president, whose political legacy is riding on the long-odds bid to pacify Iraq, appeared with US troops in Fort Benning, Georgia, with his own personal sales pitch on Thursday.
Bush said the revised plan was “our best chance for success” but warned against expecting an immediate drop in violence.
“The new strategy is not going to yield immediate results, it's going to take a while,” he told the troops. “Yet, over time, we can expect to see positive results.”
Rice, meanwhile, defended the Bush administration's reliance on the much-derided Maliki regime, which has failed to meet past US demands for robust action.
“I think he knows that his government is, in a sense, on borrowed time,” she said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said no one could predict how long the US troop surge in Iraq would last.
“It's viewed as a temporary surge, but I think no one has a really clear idea of how long that might be,” Gates said, adding the United States would closely monitor Iraqi compliance before the first new troops arrived in Iraq.
He also warned that all districts would be targeted, including the stronghold of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, while Rice vowed the United States would not let Tehran disrupt the US plan to stabilize Iraq, after Bush said US forces would hunt down Iranian and Syrian agents in the country.
“I don't want to speculate on what operations the United States may be engaged in, but you will see that the United States is not going to simply stand idly by and let these activities continue,” she said in one interview.
Rice spoke hours after US troops detained six Iranians in the Iraqi city of Arbil. Iran said five Iranians were seized from its consulate, but the Pentagon denied raiding the building.
The secretary of state was to head on a tour of the Middle East on Friday to sell the new US plan to moderate Arab allies. But before leaving she failed to placate US senators.
Democrat Christopher Dodd, a 2008 presidential candidate, described the US Iraq policy as a “fool's paradise.” Even staunch Republican Senator Norm Coleman said “the cost is too great” in terms of US lives to support the Bush plan.
Bush said in Wednesday's speech his new push was aimed at crushing terrorists, insurgents and rogue militias, and helping Iraq's security forces take control of the entire country by November.
Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said Bush's plan improved the odds for victory in his country.
“The chances of success are higher,” he told the BBC. “But, as we all know, the terrorists and the violence will not stop.”
