US media sceptical about Iraq plan

Mr Bush's strategy was met with scepticism by the US media

"Bush's Strategy for Iraq Risks Confrontations," the New York Times pronounced on its front page after the US president unveiled his plan to end the conflict.

The announcement late on Wednesday that Mr Bush intends to send 21,500 combat troops to bolster US forces already in the country was met with scepticism by most major papers.

"An old strategy", "tragically inadequate", "very risky", or "shocking in its banality" - are just a handful of the criticisms flung at Mr Bush's proposed "New Way Forward".

The Boston Globe said: "There really is nothing new about the 'new strategy' Bush proposed... His prolonging of a failed strategy in Iraq looks more and more like a refusal to cope with the looming consequences of his own mistakes."

According to the New York Times the president has a "chance to stop offering more fog and be honest with the nation, and he did not take it".

The grandeur of [the president's] promise was contrasted by the shocking banality of what is actually being proposed The Huffington Post

In an editorial, the newspaper said the plan was "a way for this president to run out the clock and leave his mess for the next one".

Some publications credited Mr Bush for admitting he had made mistakes in the past in his approach to the conflict.

But the founder of The Huffington Post posted a scathing opinion piece.

"The president has already admitted mistakes in Iraq. His mistake now is in not changing course (except rhetorically) after the earlier admissions of mistakes," wrote Arianna Huffington.

"The grandeur" of his promise to change America's course in Iraq and help the US succeed in the fight against terror was "contrasted by the shocking banality of what is actually being proposed," she wrote.

'Republicans splintered'

Many media outlets emphasised that the president would face both a defiant Congress controlled by the Democrats and a US public largely opposed to the war.

The main New York Times analysis piece said that Mr Bush was taking a "calculated gamble" that the US public would give him more time to turn the war around.

[There is the] danger that Iraqi troops and Iraqi leaders won't deliver on the steps expected of them, even as American soldiers fight to secure Baghdad The Washington Post

Despite widespread opposition to the strategy, Mr Bush was also betting that Congress would "not have the political nerve to thwart him by cutting off money for the war".

Mr Bush "is not only inviting an epic clash with the Democrats who run Capitol Hill", but is "rejecting the central thrust of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and flouting the advice of some of his own generals, as well as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki", the article read.

The Washington Post's main editorial described the plan as "very risky" and that it was "likely to cause a spike in US casualties, while the chances that it will stabilise Iraq are far lower".

The plan "is likely to touch off a more dangerous phase of the war, featuring months of fighting" in the streets of Baghdad that "could put US military commanders in exactly the sort of tough urban fight" that war planners tried to avoid during the 2003 invasion, an analysis piece said.

The Los Angeles Times noted how the speech "has further united Democrats on Capitol Hill," while the president's Republicans "have splintered in the face of widespread popular discontent over the war and Bush's plans to escalate it".

"There is a lot of anxiety and heartburn here", Republican Representative Ray LaHood told the newspaper.

New York Post columnist John Podhoretz was more optimistic. He described the "noble" plan as "the country's last, best and only hope of prevailing in Iraq".

However, he warned that if the president failed he would have almost no defenders and Congress funding for the war would end in 2008.

Delivering on promises

Many publications picked up on the renewed onus Mr Bush has placed on the Iraqi government.

More US casualties are feared as US soldiers fight to secure Baghdad

The Los Angeles Times said the reason to maintain at least a flicker of hope was Mr Bush's "absolute-final-we're-really-serious-this-time ultimatum to the Iraqi government".

Mr Bush told the Iraqi prime minister that "America's commitment is not open-ended" and that if it did not follow through on his pledge to prevent "political or sectarian interference", Iraq would lose the support of the American people.

The Bush administration hopes that in the window of security opened by US troops, economic reconstruction will resume and political leaders will reach accords necessary to end sectarian conflict.

"It is unlikely that the additional troops will be enough to make a difference," or that Mr Maliki "will honour his latest pledge" but America and Iraq will know in a matter of months whether Iraq's government is worth defending, the LA Times editorial read.

The Washington Post says the danger of Mr Bush's new policy is that "Iraqi troops and Iraqi leaders won't deliver on the steps expected of them, even as American soldiers fight to secure Baghdad - and, almost certainly, die in larger numbers than before".