From The SF Chronicle
By Deb Riechmann

President Bush, facing growing doubts about his war strategy, said Wednesday that Iraqi troops are increasingly taking the lead in battle but that “this will take time and patience.” He refused to set a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces.

Bush said the U.S. military presence in Iraq is set to change, by making fewer patrols and convoys, moving out of Iraqi cities and focusing more on specialized operations aimed at high-value terrorist targets.

“As Iraqi forces gain experience and the political process advances, we will be able to decrease our troop level in Iraq without losing our capability to defeat the terrorists,” Bush told a supportive audience at the U.S. Naval Academy. “These decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the good judgment of our commanders, not by artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington.”

Bush’s emphasis on the readiness of Iraqi security forces came at a time when continued violence in Iraq and the death of more than 2,000 U.S. troops have contributed to a sharp drop in the president’s popularity.

Even before Bush finished speaking, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid issued a statement claiming that Bush “recycled his tired rhetoric of ’stay the course’ and once again missed an opportunity to lay out a real strategy for success in Iraq that will bring our troops safely home.”

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