Against a deepening mood of pessimism in the US about the situation in Iraq, President Bush vowed yesterday to "stay the course" and stick to the June 30th deadline for transferring civilian power to a provisional Iraqi government.
With the American military hold on Iraq shaken by the Shia uprising and an upsurge in Sunni resistance, there is less certainty on Capitol Hill about the ability of the US to adhere to the timetable for a handover of sovereignty.
US civilian administrator Paul Bremer yesterday cancelled a scheduled private briefing to Congress to deal with the situation in Baghdad.
CNN reported yesterday that the US is considering sending more troops to Iraq. US Central Command chief Gen John Abizaid has ordered military commanders to draw up "options" for increasing troop numbers in Iraq in a worse-case scenario.
There are 130,000 troops currently in the Iraq theatre - about 10,000 more than scheduled because of an overlap in a change-over to fresh troops in recent weeks, described as the biggest single troop deployment in US military history.
Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy yesterday launched a withering attack on Mr Bush, calling Iraq "George Bush's Vietnam," and accusing the president of creating "the largest credibility gap since Richard Nixon".
Republican Senator Richard Lugar, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, told ABC News that the June 30th date may be unrealistic and it was time to start a debate about it.
The committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Joseph Biden, said that the administration was at odds with itself over whether to keep control or pass the problem to the United Nations, and predicted "overwhelming turmoil" between June 30th and elections in January.
Mr Bush put a brave face on the news from Iraq when he spoke yesterday at an event in Charlotte, North Carolina, to promote a job-training initiative.
"We will not be shaken by the thugs and terrorists," he said. "We face tough action in Iraq but we will stay the course."
Later Mr Bush was pressed by reporters in North Carolina about the US timetable for a handover in the light of the inability of US-trained police and US forces to control many urban districts in Iraq.
"I believe we can transfer authority by June 30th," he said. "We're working toward that day... We're now in the process of deciding what the entity will look like to whom we will transfer sovereignty. But the date remains firm." He said that "the closer we come to the deadline, the more likely it is people will challenge our will."