Bush: 20,000 more to Iraq; 'expect more casualites'

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 — President Bush announced tonight that he is sending more than 20,000 American troops to Iraq to quell the sectarian violence there, as he conceded for the first time that he provided neither enough troops nor enough resources last year to halt the country’s descent into chaos, and that he pursued a strategy the White House now admits was based on flawed assumptions about the shaky Iraqi government.

In a speech to the nation that differed sharply in both tone and substance from his previous, confident-sounding insistence that America was making progress in building a workable democracy, Mr. Bush publicly warned the Iraqi government that “America’s commitment is not open-ended.”

But the president gave no indication that the troop increase would be short-lived — military officials estimate it will take at least a year — and he warned that even if the new strategy works, “we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties” as American troops join around-the-clock patrols in Baghdad’s most deadly neighborhoods.

Read the rest at the NY Times