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The World From Berlin

Bush Flirts with Reality

President Bush has conceded that the US is not winning the war in Iraq. His reponse? Send in more troops to finish a job few believe can be done militarily.

President George W. Bush has said he's considering a short-term increase in American troops in Iraq, and he also believes the United States should increase the size of its military forces in the long term.

Speaking at his last planned press conference of the year on Wednesday, the president said he was re-thinking his war strategy and that one option was to increase the number of US soldiers in Iraq. "I haven’t made up my mind yet about more troops," he said, adding that he would wait to hear back from new Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who made an unannounced trip to Iraq on Wednesday. Gates met with top US generals and they discussed the issue of boosting troop strength in the country. After the meeting he told reporters that he would also confer with top Iraqi officials about what the future American role in the country should be. Bush is expected to announce a fresh plan in January for Iraq, where about 140,000 US soldiers are stationed.

The signs of a new direction come as the violence continues to escalate in Iraq. Attacks on US and Iraqi troops and civilians have reached their highest point since the interim Iraqi government took power in 2004. According to a Pentagon report released Monday, there has been a 22 percent increase in violence since August, with attacks having risen to almost 1,000 a week.

The ongoing chaos seems to have prompted President Bush to modify his expectations about how the war in Iraq is going. In an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, the president said "We're not winning, we're not losing." Before last month's disastrous congressional elections, which saw Republicans lose control of both houses, Bush had insisted that the US was "absolutely winning."

The German financial daily Handelsblatt writes:

"Six weeks after the defeat of Bush's Republicans, it is becoming clear how the president has interpreted the elections: Not as a demand to withdraw from Iraq, rather as a signal to follow the same path unrelentingly. Bush doesn’t talk about victory any more, but that doesn’t mean that he is going to give up Iraq.

"Two years before he has to leave the White House, Bush wants to force a turnaround. To do so, he is even ignoring all of the Baker Commission's recommendations. Yet even if one shares the opinion that it is possible to win the conflict militarily: the increase in troop numbers comes too late.

"It was Donald Rumsfeld who economized wherever he could on the number of troops before the war. He did indeed take Iraq with minimal force, but then there weren’t enough troops to control the country at the trouble spots. This lack of military presence in a country that had been ruled by a dictator for decades led to chaos. The insurgency is established in Iraq and won't be defeated by a few more tens of thousands of soldiers."

According to the center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung:

"The president has admitted that his country is not on the verge of victory in Iraq. One could interpret Bush's admission as a sign that a new realism has finally entered the White House.

"But one could also interpret Bush's announcement that troop numbers will be increased as a concession to reality. The fact is that the United States' strategic goals can only be achieved with tens of thousands of extra soldiers. But is it really a sign of newly gained sense of reality when the president considers sending up to 30,000 extra troops to Iraq in the short term? ... And is it a sign of a change in direction when he wants to ask for a further $100 billion, instead of the $70 billion already approved by Congress? Iraq will thus end up being more expensive than the entire Vietnam War.

"Bush is resisting the unavoidable -- and is still far from viewing the Iraq war was a huge strategic mistake that cannot be corrected militarily. The president will be in the White House for another two years. It seems that he wants to use that time to prove to the world that he was right all along."

The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung is equally skeptical:

"Finally the man who ordered the march on Baghdad has understood that the US-led battle for the democratization of Iraq has failed. It is now just about supporting the country militarily until it is somewhat stable and capable of sustaining itself -- regardless of what form of government might take shape there.

"The president seems to be on the path towards finding a sense of reality again. However, (Bush wants) to increase the number of troops in Iraq by up to 30,000. That may be necessary to prevent the bloodbath in Iraq from getting even worse. But it is in no way near enough."

"Bush acts as if he has learned nothing from more than five years of fighting the war on terror -- other than the power of guns. Despite the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Commission he has not initiated any diplomatic efforts to stem the conflict. Bush doesn’t want to see Syria and Iran as potential helpers in solving the Iraq catastrophe. That is simply a denial of reality."

-- Siobhán Dowling, 1:30 p.m. CET