The United States will not be "run out" of the Middle East by the Iraq crisis, President George W. Bush said today.
President Bush pledged today to chart "a new way forward" in Iraq and said he would only consider boosting US troop numbers there if he was sure it would help to curb rampant sectarian violence.
His new defence secretary, Robert Gates, making a first trip to Iraq to talk to US commanders and Iraqi officials, said commanders were concerned that a surge in US forces might delay the time when Iraqis can take control.
President George W Bush
"We are looking at all options and that includes increasing more troops," Mr Bush told a news conference in Washington. "I have not made up my mind.
"There has to be a specific mission that can be accomplished with more troops before I agree on that strategy."
Bush is expected to announce a new US strategy early in the new year for the unpopular war, which has so far claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis since the US invasion in 2003.
"My administration will work with Republicans and Democrats to fashion a new way forward that can succeed in Iraq," he said. "We can ask more of our Iraqi partners and we will," he added.
Critics of Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki accuse him of doing little to break the cycle of revenge killings between majority Shias and minority Sunnis.
In Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said police found 76 bodies in different districts of the capital, all with gunshot wounds and many with signs of torture, apparent victims of the sectarian death squads blamed for fuelling the violence.
The police typically report finding about 50 bodies a day. The US military also reported the deaths of two US soldiers killed in two separate roadside bombings in Baghdad.
Mr Gates, accompanied by General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Baghdad for a two-day visit to meet US commanders and Iraqi leaders and see for himself the war he has said America is not winning.
He said commanders had expressed concern that a surge in US forces might delay the time when Iraqis can assume control for security. He said he wanted to speak with Iraq's prime minister before making a judgment.
The former CIA director's visit follows a Pentagon report that said violence was at an all-time high and that the Mehdi Army militia of Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr had overtaken al-Qaeda as the biggest threat to peace in Iraq.
Mr Bush, who is facing mounting pressure to reduce America's military commitment in Iraq, predicted eventual victory and said the United States would not be "run out" of the Middle East by the Iraq crisis.
"Failure in Iraq will condemn a generation of young Americans to permanent threat from overseas. Therefore, we will succeed in Iraq."
There are about 507,000 active duty US Army soldiers and 180,000 Marines.