Petraeus report likely to enliven U.S. campaign

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An upcoming report by Gen. David Petraeus on the results of President George W. Bush's troop build-up in Iraq is likely to offer plenty of firepower for both sides to debate in the U.S. presidential campaign.

Democrats are already making clear they will seize on the absence of political reconciliation in Iraq as evidence that it is time to wind down the war.

Republicans will be able to point to military progress in parts of Iraq as cause for hope that Bush's so-called "surge" policy is having a positive impact, that it should be given more time to work and that it is possible for some U.S. troops to be brought home next spring.

All of this will fall on American voters weary of the war's ceaseless images of death and destruction, ready for change in Iraq and eager to hear from presidential candidates on how they would deal with Iraq if elected in November 2008.

Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, will report on the situation in Iraq at a congressional hearing on Monday after giving his assessment privately to Bush.

He is expected to offer a mixed picture, with U.S. and Iraqi troops successful in tamping down violence in Baghdad and Anbar province, coupled with a failure by the Iraqi government to meet essential political progress.

The report will give those candidates currently serving in the U.S. Senate an opportunity to grab some of the limelight.

P.J. Crowley, a national security expert at the Center for American Progress think tank, said it will be interesting to see if the senators focus their questions on where Iraq is now or where it will likely be when the next president takes over in 2009.

"They will be asking the questions now, but one of them will likely own the situation 16 months from now," he said.

CHANGING MINDS

Republican pollster Whit Ayres said he doubted the report would change any American minds because it would take months of good news in Iraq to change public opinion.

"People have had years to make up their minds about Iraq and they have firm opinions about it. It will take a lot for them to change their minds," he said.

A foreshadowing of the report came in a separate study by the independent Government Accountability Office, which reported this week that Iraq had failed to meet 11 of 18 political and military goals set by Congress last May.

Each side on the presidential campaign has been playing to their base of support -- for Democrats, the left, and for Republicans, the right -- who make up a great deal of presidential primary voters.

A Democrat, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, made clear it was time for the U.S. Congress to tie funding of the war to a timetable for a troop withdrawal from Iraq.