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US President George W. Bush will unveil a new Iraq strategy in early 2007, the White House said, as new polls showed most Americans do not think he can turn the unpopular war around.
“It only makes sense for the president to take whatever time he needs to have confidence in the course he'll put forward to the American people,” said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
White House officials had hoped that Bush would wrap up high-profile consultations with US diplomats and military officials as well as senior Iraqi government figures in time to showcase his new approach by Christmas.
“That is not going to happen until the new year. We do not know when, so I can't give a date,” spokesman Tony Snow told reporters. “He decided that, frankly, it's not ready yet.”
“He's got some very clear, practical, tactical and other questions,” said Snow. “Obviously this is something that he places a premium on getting done quickly, but also getting done well.”
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid criticized the move, saying: “Talking to the same people he should have talked to four years ago does not relieve the President of the need to demonstrate leadership and change his policy now.”
Bush held a closed-door video conference with US military commanders and the US ambassador in Baghdad, followed by talks at the White House with Iraq's senior elected Sunni Muslim leader, Vice President Tareq al-Hashimi.
“My message to you today, and to the Iraqi people is, we want to help you,” Bush, who recently met with Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and powerful Shiite cleric Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, told his guest.
“Our objective is to help the Iraqi government deal with the extremists and killers, and support the vast majority of Iraqis who are reasonable people who want peace,” said the US president.
“There is a chance, and I can assure you there is a great and real chance to get out of this present dilemma. It is a hard time that the Iraqis face in time being, but there is a light in the corridor,” said Hashimi.
But recent polls showed that the US public's pessimism about the war was at its worst, one week after a blue-ribbon commission indicted Bush's war-fighting strategy as a failure and called in its report for a new approach.
Bush has not embraced the major recommendations of the Iraq Study Group — notably its call for engaging Syria and Iran or pulling out most US combat troops by early 2008 — but a brace of new polls showed ample support for the commission's advice and deep skepticism towards the White House's approach.
According to a USA Today-Gallup poll published Tuesday, fewer than one American in five has a “great deal” of trust in Bush to do the “right thing” in Iraq.
A record high 62 percent of those polled said the war in Iraq was not “worth it,” while a record low 16 percent said the United States was not winning there militarily.
The poll also found most Americans want US troops withdrawn within a year, and three out of four respondents back the recommendations released last week by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.
Another poll released Tuesday, by the Pew Research Center, found half of Americans now believe the war in Iraq will turn out to be another Vietnam, a bruising US defeat, while just a third think that the United States will accomplish its goals there.
In a third survey released Tuesday, 52 percent of Americans believe the United States is losing the war, up from 34 percent last year. The Washington Post-ABC News poll found 41 percent saying Iraq is now in a civil war, up from 34 percent in August, and 45 percent say the situation is close to civil war.
The president's ratings also remain dismal, with 36 percent approving of his performance — the second-worst rating of his presidency. Only 28 percent support his handling of Iraq, the lowest result since the US invasion of March 2003.
The polls followed on the heels of a CBS News poll released Monday that showed opposition to the war in Iraq had even exceeded anti-war sentiment during the Vietnam War era.
In that poll, 62 percent of respondents said that sending troops to fight in Iraq was a mistake, while just 34 percent still support the decision.
Fifty-two percent said the situation in Iraq is getting worse, while just eight percent say the situation is getting better. Only 15 percent said that the United States would win in Iraq — a new low.
Also for the first time, a majority of Americans said that the war had already been lost.
According to the Gallup organization, which conducted the poll for the US television network, not even during the Vietnam conflict did so many Americans oppose the war.
The survey had an error margin of plus or minus three percentage points.
