Also see below:     
Bush to Call For More Troops    [

    Bush "to Reveal Iraq Troop Boost"
    By Justin Webb
    BBC News

    Wednesday 03 January 2007

    US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days, the BBC has learnt.

    The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces.

    The move comes with figures from Iraqi ministries suggesting that deaths among civilians are at record highs.

    The US president arrived back in Washington on Monday after a week-long holiday at his ranch in Texas.

    The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.

    Its central theme will be sacrifice.

    The speech, the BBC has been told, involves increasing troop numbers.

    The exact mission of the extra troops in Iraq is still under discussion, according to officials, but it is likely to focus on providing security rather than training Iraqi forces.

    The proposal, if it comes, will be highly controversial.

    Already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.

    The need to find some way of pacifying Iraq has been underlined by statistics revealed by various ministries in the Iraqi government, suggesting that well over 1,000 civilians a month are dying.

    Go to Original

    Bush to Call For More Troops
    By Brooke Hart
    NBC News

    Wednesday 03 January 2007

    In a guest column in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal President Bush addressed a range of issues. On Iraq he said he'll reveal his new strategy in the coming days.

    Administration officials tell NBC News it will involve sending some 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq.

    The plan is being called surge and accelerate: take control over violence in Baghdad, then speed up the handover of territory to Iraqi forces.

    The plan would also turn over more money to Iraq for reconstruction and a jobs program.

    But the prospect of more troops to Iraq is already drawing fire on Capitol Hill:

    A former Reagan defense official says it runs counter to the U.S. goal.

    "If you send another 20,000 more troops, casualties are going to go up, you're going to increase the Iraqi's dependence on us," Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb said.

    But hinting at his argument for a surge, President Bush wrote that the U.S. can help provide the necessary quote breathing space for Iraq's young government to meet its responsibilities.

    The president will have a tough sell here. And one administration official admits the strategy is more a political decision than a military one, with the president pushed to respond to Americans' impatience on the war. His speech on a new path in Iraq is expected in the middle of next week.