In Speech, President Will Outline Plans For Troop Withdrawals And Plead For Support From Congress

(CBS/AP) 
President Bush's speech comes just 10 days after he visited Iraq and met in Anbar province with political leaders, including Sunni sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the most prominent figure in a U.S.-backed revolt of Sunni sheiks against al Qaeda in Iraq. He was killed Thursday by a bomb, dramatizing the danger faced by people who cooperate with coalition forces.

Mr. Bush planned to talk about Abu-Risha in his speech.

"This is a sheik who was one of the first to come forward to want to work with the United States to repel al Qaeda from al-Anbar Province," said White House spokeswoman Perino. "Remember, al Qaeda was killing some of the sheiks' children and put them in a cooler to deliver to the sheiks."

"This is the kind of enemy we're dealing with," she said.

Abu-Risha's assassination is "an indication of, while there has been great progress, dramatic progress, in some areas of Iraq, there is still some work to be done," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

As part of the administration's public relations push to sell the Iraq policy, Vice President Dick Cheney planned to travel to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Michigan and MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. Iraq also was chosen as the topic for Bush's weekly Saturday radio address, and administration officials were being offered to television networks for Sunday news show appearances.

Mr. Bush's speech is the latest turning point in a 4 1/2-year-old war marred by miscalculations, surprises and setbacks.

The full-throttle effort to get out the president's message on Iraq reflects the high stakes for a president who lost his popularity and his party's control of Congress in large measure over the war and yet ordered 21,500 additional combat troops there in January to try to bring calm and give his goal of a stable, self-sustaining Iraq a chance. An additional 8,000 support troops soon followed.

Almost since the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, U.S. commanders and administration officials in Washington mistakenly believed they were on track to winding down U.S. involvement and handing off to the Iraqis. Instead, the insurgency intervened and the reality of a country in chaos conspired to deepen U.S. involvement.

Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of Mr. Bush's handling of the war, which has claimed the lives of more than 3,700 U.S. troops and cost about a half trillion dollars. His approval rating stood at 33 percent, near an all-time low, in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Thursday.

Tackling America's frustration with the 4 1/2-year-old-war, the president will counsel patience, "Some say the gains we are making in Iraq come too late. They are mistaken. It is never too late to deal a blow to al Qaeda. It is never too late to advance freedom. And it is never too late to support our troops in a fight they can win."

The White House said the president would direct Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to update Congress in six months, in March.

"So we expect, at that point in March, to hear about additional forces coming home," a senior administration official told a White House briefing, speaking on condition of anonymity in advance of Mr. Bush's speech.

Democrats against the war were not at all satisfied. They chose Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a former Army Ranger, to deliver their party's response.

"It creates and provides an illusion of change in an effort to take the wind out of the sails of those of us who want to truly change course in Iraq," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee.