CLEVELAND — With his Iraq policies under attack from prominent members of his party, President Bush on Tuesday defiantly rejected calls to withdraw troops while Senate allies blocked the latest challenge to his strategy.
"I understand there's a debate.... But I believe that it's in this nation's interests to give the commander a chance to fully implement his operations," Bush said in a speech to business executives, in which he repeatedly defended his controversial 30,000-troop buildup.
The "surge," announced in January, reached full strength in mid-June.
"They just showed up," Bush said. "And they're now beginning operations in full. And in Washington, you got people saying, 'Stop.' "
The president's unwavering defense of his strategy came amid heightened expectations that growing Republican restlessness on Capitol Hill and the lack of progress in Iraq might persuade Bush to express more openness to changing course.
In the last two weeks, five Senate Republicans, including longtime White House allies, have gone public with their concerns about the surge and urged the president to shift strategy.
Other GOP lawmakers who have been more openly critical of the Bush administration's policies have expressed new willingness to join with congressional Democrats seeking to force an end to the war.
At the same time, administration officials openly concede that the Iraqi government has failed to make significant progress on a number of the goals outlined by Congress this spring to reduce sectarian strife.
But senior Bush administration officials mounted an intense campaign in recent days to implore Senate Republicans to give the current strategy two more months before they abandon it.
The troop buildup is designed to quell violence in Baghdad and Al Anbar province to allow Iraqi leaders to reduce tensions among the country's sectarian communities.
The administration deployed White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley and others to talk to GOP lawmakers.
Meanwhile, Senate GOP leaders rallied to block a Democratic proposal that would require the military to ensure troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan get more rest time at home before they are redeployed, a policy that would curtail the Pentagon's ability to maintain current troop levels in Iraq.
