Bush faults panel ideas, calls victory in Iraq vital

WASHINGTON -- President Bush yesterday argued against key recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group and insisted that victory was not only still possible, but crucial.

Bush, standing side by side with his staunchest ally in the Iraq war, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, said the two countries must stand firm in the face of rising extremism in the Middle East, which he called an "unprecedented threat to civilization."

Bush used the word "prevail" 11 times in the hour-long White House press conference in his first expansive remarks since the Iraq Study Group offered a devastating assessment Wednesday of US policy in Iraq.

"I believe we'll prevail," he said. "I understand how hard it is to prevail. But I also want the American people to understand that if we were to fail . . . that failed policy will come to hurt generations of Americans in the future."

As Bush and Blair met, the chairmen of the study group, Republican former secretary of state James Baker III and Democratic former US representative Lee Hamilton, urged Congress to endorse their recommendations and to press Bush to adopt them.

Bush has ordered his own internal review of Iraq policy, and he said would not announce a new strategy in Iraq until the White House, Pentagon, and State Department complete that in the coming weeks.

At the news conference with Blair, Bush said he welcomed new ideas on Iraq but indicated he opposed some of the study group's central recommendations. He said he would not set a goal of withdrawing the bulk of US combat troops by 2008, insisting that troops would stay until they had achieved their objective.

"The objective, I repeat, is a government which can sustain, govern, and defend itself" and be an ally in the war on terrorism, Bush said after repeated questioning by reporters.

The panel did not set a deadline for the withdrawal of US forces but said that a shift in the US mission to training Iraqi soldiers and police could make it possible to withdraw most combat troops by early 2008.

The president also showed little enthusiasm for another of the panel's primary recommendations: that the United States try to enlist the help of Iran and Syria in stabilizing Iraq. He said the two countries "shouldn't bother to show up" at any regional meetings on the stability of Iraq unless they are committed to helping the young democracy survive politically, economically, and militarily.

One recommendation that Bush and Blair expressed support for, however, was a renewed effort to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which the study group said fuels extremism and anti-Americanism in the Middle East.

Six of the panel's 79 recommendations involved "bold" steps to bring about peace negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinians as well as between Israel and it's hostile neighbors, Lebanon and Syria.

Blair announced yesterday that he would travel to the Middle East as soon as possible to attempt to restart talks between Israel and the Palestinians, saying that a breakthrough would send "a signal of massive symbolic power across the world."

He said he would do whatever he could to prod rival Palestinian groups to form a unity government that at least tacitly accepts Israel 's right to exist as a first step toward getting negotiations back on track.

"It is important that we do everything we can in the wider Middle East to bring about peace between Israel and the Palestinians," Blair said. "I believe that by moving this forward, we send a very strong signal, not just to the region but the whole of the world, that we are just in our application of our values."

Bush said he strongly supported Blair's mission, but also added that no one could impose peace on the two parties.

Israeli government officials and pro-Israel activists in the United States criticized the report's linkage of Iraq with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, saying that Israel should not be forced to negotiate peace before it has a reliable partner. Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said there was no connection between the two conflicts.

But in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hamilton and Baker argued that it is vital to at least make an effort on the Israel-Palestinian issue in order to win broader support for the United States from moderate Arabs across the region.

"There are a lot of moderate Arabs that you have to appeal to, to solve the Iraqi problem, all friends of ours -- the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Egyptians, the Kuwaitis, the Gulf states," Hamilton said. Without a peace process, he said, "We have no legitimacy with the moderate Arabs, who are key for us."

Baker said that Syria could play a major role in pressing the more radical Palestinian factions into recognizing Israel and getting the negotiations back on track.

"That's exactly one of the main reasons for engaging Syria," he said. "If we can't do it, we can't do it, but we don't lose a darn thing by trying."

While many lawmakers praised the Study Group recommendations as the end of Bush's failing "stay the course" strategy in Iraq, Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who has urged the Bush administration to increase troop levels, called the report "a recipe that will lead to our defeat sooner or later in Iraq."

"There's only one thing worse than an over-stressed Army and Marine Corps, and that's a defeated Army and Marine Corps," said McCain, a Vietnam veteran and likely 2008 Republican presidential candidate.

He also rejected the idea that Syria or Iran would ever cooperate with the United States in Iraq.

"I don't believe that a peace conference with people who are dedicated to your extinction has much short-term gain," he said.

Yesterday, several analysts praised the study group's grim assessment as a refreshing wake-up call for the American people.

"Up until this point, there clearly has not been recognition or acceptance that the situation is grim and getting worse by the administration," Mark Schneider, vice president of the International Crisis Group, a global conflict-resolution think tank. "The report is essentially saying, 'The emperor has no clothes and he has been walking around like that for some time now.' "

But Bush, during his news conference with Blair, assured reporters that he is fully aware of how badly the situation has unraveled in Iraq. When one asked him why he called the violence "unsettling" rather than a more devastating term, and whether he was still in denial about the situation in Iraq, Bush fired back: "It's bad," he said. "Does that help?"