WASHINGTON (AP) ― President Bush on Thursday ordered an indefinite halt in U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq after July, embracing the key recommendations of his top war commander. Bush said that Gen. David Petraeus will "have all the time he needs" to consider when more American forces could return home.
Mr. Bush's decisions virtually guarantees a major U.S. presence in Iraq throughout his term in office in January, when a new president takes office.
In another major decision, the president announced he will seek to relieve the heavy strain on the Army by reducing the length of combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan to 12 months, down from the current level of 15 months. He said the change would take effect on Aug. 1, and would affect U.S. forces already deployed on the front lines.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said earlier that the president hopes the plan will help deal with "stress issues" for troops and their families, reports CBS News correspondent Peter Maer.
Mr. Bush said U.S. force have made major gains since he ordered a buildup of about 30,000 U.S. forces. "We have renewed and revived the prospect of success" the president said.
Mr. Bush delivered his remarks in the Cross Hall of the White House before an audience of veterans' service groups and Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The president's decision had been foreshadowed by two days of testimony before a skeptical Congress by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad. Now in its sixth year, the war has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 U.S. troops and cost more than $500 billion.
Mr. Bush said the United States would proceed with planned drawdowns of U.S. forces, bringing home the 30,000 troops he sent to Iraq last year to combat sectarian violence. The additional troops were also intended to help restore basic security and provide a sense of calm to allow Iraqi leaders to attempt to achieve political reconciliation.
While acknowledging that "serious and complex problems remain in Iraq," Mr. Bush said that "a major strategic shift" has occurred since the buildup.
"Today we have the initiative," the president said.
Petraeus has told Congress that it's too early to talk about future drawdowns because the situation in Iraq remains fragile, and that while security has improved and Iraqi forces are shouldering more of the fight against extremists, Iraq still could descend again into chaos.
As a backdrop to the president's speech, U.S. helicopters launched airstrikes at suspected militants in the Shiite area of Baghdad known as Sadr City. Iraqi police said separate attacks on Sadr City left five people dead and four more injured.
The U.S. military said four gunmen were killed late Wednesday by Hellfire missiles targeting a group of men who firing at troops putting up concrete barriers around a checkpoint.
However, police who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said two of those killed in the attack were brothers aged seven and nine.
In a separate incident, police said a man was killed and four injured when missiles hit a building in Sadr City on Thursday morning.
Mr. Bush made the case that his troop buildup has succeeded in reducing violence in Iraq, despite recent increases in Baghdad and Basra. He'll have a harder time arguing that political reconciliation - his rationale for sending 30,000 more troops to Iraq last year - has been achieved.
Even before Mr. Bush made his announcement, war critics went on the attack.
"We are six years into a war that has claimed more than 4,000 American lives ... cost nearly a trillion dollars that could have been used to meet urgent needs at home and damaged the reputation of the United States in the eyes of the world," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote to Mr. Bush in a letter she released late Wednesday. "General Petraeus admitted on Tuesday that `we haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel' in Iraq.
"The American people are entitled to know when they will receive a more hopeful report than the one provided by General Petraeus, and what changes in policy you will make to achieve it before you leave office," Pelosi, D-Calif., said.
She added that Mr. Bush needs to tell the American people how keeping 140,000 troops in Iraq will help reduce the threat the nation faces because the U.S. military is bogged down in Iraq, what conditions will be needed for further troop withdrawals beyond July and how much longer the threat from extremists hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border will be allowed to "grow because our resource commitment in Iraq makes is impossible to respond adequately."
After Petraeus' war update in September, Mr. Bush said the principle guiding his decisions on troop levels was "return on success." He said then that the additional troops he ordered to Iraq had improved security enough that they could be pulled out by the end of July. That would bring the current level of 160,000 troops in Iraq now to about 140,000 in July.
Beyond that, Petraeus wants a 45-day period of "consolidation and evaluation," to be followed by an indefinite period of assessment before he would recommend any further pullouts.
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