Bush leaves Iraq war to next president: papers

NEW YORK (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's pledge to bring some troops back from Iraq may buy time, but his strategy is little changed and he left the task of ending the war to the next president, newspaper editorials said on Friday.

Bush told Americans in a televised address Thursday evening that U.S. forces could be cut by about 20,000 by July and he linked the reduction to what he said was progress on the ground, especially in volatile Anbar province and in Baghdad.

The administration's so-called "surge" over the past eight months involved deployment of about 21,500 combat troops.

The Washington Post said Bush's strategy of a gradual withdrawal was "the least bad plan" since a more hasty troop drawdown would result in massive civilian casualties.

But the paper's editorial said Bush's speech was marred by important omissions.

"The president failed to acknowledge that, according to the standards he himself established in January, the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq has been a failure," it said, pointing to the lack of political accord in Iraq.

A New York Times' editorial headlined "No Exit, No Strategy" also blasted Bush for refusing to recognize failure.

"No amount of smoke could obscure the truth: Mr. Bush has no strategy to end his disastrous war and no strategy for containing the chaos he unleashed," it said. "It seems the burden of ending the war will fall to the next president."

The Wall Street Journal said Republicans benefited this week after top U.S. Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker reported progress in the war.

"The most obvious winners are congressional Republicans. The pressure they had faced to join with Democrats on withdrawal deadlines has now ebbed," it said.

"GRABBING AT FLOTSAM"

But the Louisville Courier-Journal was among several newspapers that said progress was slim. "Those are assessments to which the Bush administration and its nervous Republican congressional allies will cling desperately, like shipwrecked sailors grabbing at flotsam in a heaving sea," it wrote.

"Americans need to be presented with fresh alternatives, such as carefully measured troop withdrawals, intensified regional diplomacy and de facto partition to separate Iraq's warring sectarian factions," it said.

"What they are getting is just a new variation of the Bush 'stay the course' foolishness."

Public opinion was divided.

At a cafe in Atlanta, Lorenzo Reid said Bush wanted to give the impression he would bring troops home to help Republicans in the general election next year.

"If he really wanted to bring troops home why didn't he do it before?" he said. "It's just rhetoric."

At Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, where volunteers greet U.S. soldiers flying home for leave from Iraq on a daily basis, John Johnson, a Korean veteran and self-described "dyed in the wool Republican," said he believed in the president. "I think he's one who stands firm and he's not running for re-election, so why would he lie?"

Sgt. Luis Tachiquin, returning from a tour with his infantry unit in Ramadi, in western Iraq, told Reuters: "There are great things happening there. The situation is getting calmer and the local people are willing to help us," he said.

Bush gave no specifics on a time frame for any troop cuts beyond mid-2008 and said he thought it was important that the United States maintain a "security engagement" in Iraq that extends beyond the end of his presidency in January 2009.

The New York Post said Bush made no big policy changes, "effectively consigning the future of Iraq, if not the entire Middle East, to the American presidential political process."

(Additional reporting by Mike Conlon in Chicago, Matthew Bigg in Atlanta and Ed Stoddard in Dallas)