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Bloody summer will be crucial test for troop surge, says BushTim Reid in Washington

President Bush said yesterday that the next few weeks in Iraq would be critical in determining the success or failure of his troop surge plan – and he predicted great bloodshed over the summer.

Mr Bush, appearing to concede that he had little time before he faced a definitive political and public revolt over the war, warned the Government of Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, that it needed “to show real progress in return for America’s continued support and sacrifice”.

With all eyes in Washington on a crucial progress report due to be delivered to Congress by the US ground commander General David Petraeus in September, Mr Bush acknowledged that the enemy in Iraq knew that it could be a make-or-break date for his war strategy. “It could make August a tough month, because what they’re going to try to do is kill as many innocent people as they can to try to influence the debate here at home,” he said during a Rose Garden press conference.

“They recognise that the death of innocent people could shake our will, could undermine David Petraeus’s attempt to create a more stable government. And so . . . it could be a very difficult August.”

Despite his repeated warnings that an early withdrawal of American troops would be disastrous, and could provoke a wider Middle East conflict, Mr Bush said that he would have no option but to order a withdrawal if the Iraqi Government demanded it.

The Democratic-controlled Congress is preparing to send Mr Bush a $120 billion (£60 billion) Bill today that would fund the war until September 30, and without a demand for troop withdrawals that a majority of Democrats wanted.

Despite the Democrat takeover of Congress last November, after a midterm election regarded as a popular repudiation of the war, Iraq is causing far more problems for the party’s 2008 presidential candidates than their Republican counterparts.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, its two leading contenders, had still not revealed yesterday whether they would vote for the war-spending Bill. If they back it they will face the rage of the party’s grass roots and liberal activists, who are a powerful force among the primary electorate. If they vote “no”, they will be accused of failing to support the troops.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1837804.ece