President George W Bush said during a surprise visit to Iraq on Monday that a reduction in US troops in the war-ravaged nation was possible, as he prepared for a showdown with Congress.
But he insisted that combat force levels would be decided based on the recommendations of his commanders in Iraq, and not by “nervous” politicians in the Democratic-led US Congress.
Bush commented about a possible drawdown after a meeting of his “war council” with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders just days before US commander General David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker report to Congress on the progress of the troop “surge” strategy.
“General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker tell me if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it is possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces,” Bush said, referring to headway the American military says it has made in the restive province of Anbar.
“I urge members of Congress to listen to what (Petraeus and Crocker) have to say,” he said.
Bush, who is on his way to Australia for an Asia-Pacific regional summit, arrived at the desert air base of Al-Asad in Anbar along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley.
In a later address to raucously cheering Marines, Bush rejected the intensifying pressure from Congress and reiterated his controversial stand that the war in Iraq is a life-or-death struggle against al-Qaeda extremists.