WASHINGTON — Stemming a revolt among Senate Republicans, President Bush appeared Thursday to win two more months for his "surge" strategy in Iraq after arguing that U.S. forces had made some progress and needed time to make the country more secure.
Issuing a report to Congress on the war, Bush acknowledged that Iraqi leaders had made little headway in resolving the political conflicts that have paralyzed the government and fueled sectarian violence.
But he appealed to nervous Republicans to stand firm, arguing that lawmakers should not impose their judgments on the commander in chief.
"I don't think Congress ought to be running the war. I think they ought to be funding the troops," Bush said at a White House news conference.
Leading Republicans said they remained skeptical that the buildup of 30,000 troops would work, but they appeared to have accepted the president's plea to wait until a more comprehensive Pentagon assessment is released Sept. 15 before trying to force any change in course.
"In deference to the president ... I think it's important that we wait until all the facts are in in September," said John W. Warner (R-Va.), former Senate Armed Services Committee chairman. Warner is working on a proposal that would call on the president to make plans to remove U.S. troops from most combat operations.
Unless there are significant improvements in Iraq in the next two months, lawmakers say, the president will almost certainly face a mutiny within his party's ranks.
Public support for the war has eroded to the point where more than two out of three Americans support a troop withdrawal over the next nine months. A sense of near-panic has set in among congressional Republicans, who lost their majority in Congress last year in large part because of opposition to the war. They fear further losses next year.
One House Republican who has not publicly expressed his reservations about the president's policy said many of his colleagues were losing patience with Bush.
"It's getting harder and harder to hold things together over here. There's a lot of unrest," said the lawmaker, who asked not to be identified in discussing discontent in his party. "People are saying, 'What are we doing? Just sitting here, waiting?' "
Two and half weeks ago, the president faced a potential tide of defections among congressional Republicans when Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, one of the party's most respected voices on foreign affairs, delivered an impassioned critique of the Bush's policy and urged a change of course.
