Bush orders suspension of Iraq withdrawals

WASHINGTON – President Bush ordered an indefinite suspension Thursday of troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer but promised that the war “is not endless” as he braced for a new election-year showdown with Congress over the conflict’s economic cost and long-term future.

With Bush effectively freezing troop levels at 140,000 in August, Congress moved to challenge him on two fronts. Democratic leaders prepared to amend war-funding legislation to limit his options and to direct money to domestic priorities, while lawmakers from both parties took on his plan to sign a strategic agreement with Iraq that would outlast his presidency.

The decision to accept Army Gen. David Petraeus’ plan to halt withdrawals after the extra combat brigades that were sent last year depart in July means that Bush probably will bequeath his successor a force about as large as it has been for most of the past five years.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he has given up hope of scaling back to 100,000 troops in Iraq by the end of 2008, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker indicated that he expects the war to last several more years.

“I’ve told him he’ll have all the time he needs,” Bush said of Petraeus after having breakfast with his Iraq commander and his Iraq ambassador at the White House. “Some have suggested that this period of evaluation will be a pause. That’s misleading because none of our operations in Iraq will be on hold. Instead, we will use the months ahead to take advantage of the opportunities created by the surge.”

Although he suspended troop withdrawals, Bush tried to assure the nation that they might resume. “While this war is difficult, it is not endless,” he said in a midday speech in the main hall of the White House, where he also announced that he will cut Army combat tours in Iraq from 15 months to 12 months. “And we expect that, as conditions on the ground continue to improve, they will permit us to continue the policy of return on success.”

The decision drew instant criticism from Capitol Hill and the campaign trail. The two Democrats vying to take over as commander in chief condemned the president for potentially leaving behind a mess. “There is no end in sight under the Bush policy,” Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois told a crowd in Gary, Ind. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York asked, “What is the endgame in Iraq?” and said that Bush needs to tell the country.

As the administration is trying to map out an endgame, so, too, are Democrats who have been unable to effect meaningful change in U.S. war policy since they took over Congress 15 months ago. Democrats have found repeatedly that they do not have enough votes to force their will on Bush on troop levels, so lawmakers are searching for new avenues to take on the president in the seven months before the election.

One confrontation centers on Bush’s effort to negotiate a long-term “strategic framework” agreement with Iraq this summer without congressional approval. The U.N. mandate that provides a legal basis for foreign troops operating in Iraq is set to expire at the end of the year, and the administration wants the framework and a related status-of-forces agreement to govern the U.S. engagement in Iraq in the new year.

But lawmakers from both parties said Bush is trying to govern war policy after he leaves office, and they maintained that an agreement with such enormous consequences should be submitted to the Senate for ratification as a treaty. At a rancorous Senate hearing, Republicans warned that they would join Democrats in fighting the pact.

“You are not going to get this done between now and the election,” Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, told David Satterfield, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s chief adviser on Iraq. “It’s not going to happen. … Look at reality.”