US President George W. Bush acknowledged on Thursday his Iraq strategy had made limited progress but said he would wait for a September security report before considering a change of course. An interim White House report found the Iraqi government had made only mixed progress in meeting political goals.
It said conditions were still dangerous and challenging, six months after Bush ordered a US troop buildup. Bush said it was too early to evaluate whether the troop increase was working and that a broader assessment by General David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker in September will be pivotal.
"We'll also have a clearer picture of how the new strategy is unfolding, and be in a better position to judge where we need to make any adjustments," Bush told a news conference. He said he would consider "making another decision, if need be" at that time.
The White House report is being sent to Congress as several prominent Republicans have broken ranks with Bush on Iraq, adding momentum to Democratic-led efforts to try to force a scaling back of troop levels more than four years after a US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
In another day of violence in Iraq, a suicide bomber in the northern town of Tal Afar on Thursday killed seven guests celebrating the wedding of an Iraqi policeman. In Baghdad, an Iraqi photographer and driver working for Reuters in Iraq were killed in what police said was American military action and which witnesses described as a helicopter attack.
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said the White House report confirmed that the Iraq war was "headed in a dangerous direction." "The Iraqi government has not met the key political benchmarks it has set for itself and Iraqi security forces continue to lag well behind expectations," he said.
Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama criticised the Iraqi government for having "done nothing" to achieve reconciliation among the country's warring factions and said the White House was out of touch.
"Does this White House think that we don't know how to turn on our televisions? Don't tell us we're making progress in Iraq when the last three months have been some of the deadliest since this war began," Obama said.
Drafted by White House officials with leading contributions from Petraeus and Crocker, the report gave the Iraqi government a satisfactory grade on eight of 18 goals set by Congress. It showed that on eight of the benchmarks, Baghdad's performance was unsatisfactory, and mixed on two others. "Those who believe that the battle in Iraq is lost will likely point to the unsatisfactory performance on some of the political benchmarks," Bush said.
"Those of us who believe the battle in Iraq can and must be won see the satisfactory performance on several of the security benchmarks as a cause for optimism," he added. The interim report showed limited progress by the Iraqi government in meeting goals for political reconciliation such as passing a law to share oil revenues.
It also warned of the risk of further attacks by al Qaeda in coming months. "The security situation in Iraq remains complex and extremely challenging," the report said. The report echoed recent comments from Bush saying it is hard to gauge progress in Iraq less than a month after all of the additional 28,000 US troops have arrived in Iraq.
A USA Today/Gallup poll this week showed more than seven in 10 Americans favour withdrawing nearly all US troops by April. Several surveys show Bush's approval ratings are at the lows of his presidency.air strike kills Five militiamen.
A US air strike killed five militiamen who were planting a roadside bomb in the southern Iraqi city of Diwaniya on Thursday, a military spokesman said. A police official in the Shia city said five members of the Mehdi Army militia of anti-American Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had been killed.
The police official and a hospital source said five civilians who were nearby at the time were also killed. The US military spokesman said "there were no civilian casualties reported". "The Coalition engaged six anti-Iraq force members placing an IED (improvised explosive device) on a road. Initial reports indicate five of the six were killed in the strike," the spokesman said in response to questions from Reuters. The police official said the air strike took place just after midnight, while the military spokesman called it a pre-dawn attack.