Bush says Iraqi troops playing bigger role

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush, facing
waning public support for Iraq war, said on Wednesday Iraqi
troops are taking a bigger role against the Iraqi insurgency
and offered hope U.S. troops could come home.

Bush emerged from a war council with Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, Gen. Peter Pace, new chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, and U.S. Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, to
claim progress in the training of Iraqi troops, which he calls
a prerequisite to a U.S. pullout.

But he offered no timetable.

A CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll last month said only 32 percent
of Americans approved of Bush’s handling of the war, which he
launched in 2003 citing the threat of weapons of mass
destruction possessed by Saddam Hussein’s government. Such
weapons were never found.

“Over 30 percent of the Iraqi troops are in the lead on
these offensive operations. We’ve got troops embedded with
them, and that’s an important part of the training mission. But
nevertheless, the Iraqis are showing more and more capability
to take the fight to the enemy,” Bush said on the steps of the
White House Rose Garden.

There are persistent questions about the quality of the
trained Iraqi forces and the degree to which they have been
infiltrated by insurgents. Senior U.S. generals said last week
that the number of Iraqi battalions able to fight last week
without help from American forces had shrunk to one, from three
in July.

More than 1,900 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq,
increasing the uneasiness among Americans about the wisdom of
pursuing the war.

Bush said U.S. troops will stay on the offensive to try to
tamp down an upsurge in violence spurred by a planned October
15 referendum on an Iraqi constitution.

“I’ve told the American people all along our troops will
stay there as long as necessary. We’ll do the job. We’ll train
these folks. And as they become more capable, we’ll be able to
bring folks home with the honor they’ve earned,” he said.