(January 10, 2007)—Acknowledging that the “situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people and… unacceptable to me,” President Bush outlined changes in US war strategy Wednesday night in a nationally televised address from the White House.

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While “there is no magic formula for success in Iraq,” Mr. Bush said, “failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States.”

The most urgent priority in Iraq, Mr. Bush said, is security, especially in Baghdad where violence is splitting Iraq’s capital city “into sectarian enclaves, and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis.”

Earlier efforts to secure the city have failed, Mr. Bush said, because there were not enough US and Iraqi troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of insurgents and “too many restrictions on the troops we did have.”

This time, however, Mr. Bush said he plans to send more than 20,000 additional US troops to Iraq, the vast majority of whom would be deployed to Baghdad.

The five additional brigades deployed to the capital city will bolster the thousands of soldiers already serving as part of the 1st Cavalry Division’s Task Force Baghdad.

Their mission will be to work alongside Iraqi units to clear and secure neighborhoods in the city.

Pentagon officials say the additional troops will come from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. N.C. as well as brigades based at Fort Riley, Kan., Fort Lewis, Wash. and Fort Stewart and Fort Benning in Georgia.

“This time we’ll have the force levels we need to hold the areas that have been cleared,” Mr. Bush said.

And this time troops will have a green light to enter neighborhoods that were off limits because of political and sectarian interference in the past, he said.

Four thousand of the additional troops would be deployed to Anbar Province to keep pressure on insurgents in the volatile region, Mr. Bush said.

The plan also establishes benchmarks for Iraq’s government, Mr. Bush said.

“I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people -- and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people,” Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush said the Iraqi government will take responsibility for security in all of the country’s provinces by November, pass legislation to share oil revenues among Iraqi citizens, spend $10 billion on projects that will create jobs, reform laws and establish a fair process for amending the country’s constitution.

Mr. Bush said the plan also calls for interruption of the flow of support for insurgents from both Iran and Syria.

“We will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq,” Mr. Bush said

Despite the changes, Mr. Bush said, there will be no immediate end to the violence.

“The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are without conscience, and they will make the year ahead bloody and violent. Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue -- and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties. The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will,” he said

A number of Democrats and even some members of the president’s own party disagree.

The new Democratic leaders of both the US House and Senate were openly critical of the plan as details circulated before Mr. Bush spoke Wednesday night.

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