Editorial: Hardly the way forward

Thursday, Jan. 11, 2007 | 7:04 a.m.

I t has been clear for some time now that President Bush would seek an escalation in the Iraq war by sending in more troops. The real question has been whether the president's formal announcement of this new deployment, in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday night, would change the public opinion of a war that is overwhelmingly unpopular.

The president did admit that his administration has made mistakes in prosecuting the war, the type of acknowledgement rarely made by this White House. "There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents," Bush said. "And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have."

But just because the president has made a belated concession that mistakes were made hardly means that an increase of 21,500 troops in Iraq is justified. There was nothing in the president's address that would convince us that an escalation in troop levels is the right thing to do.

On the contrary, a troop buildup will likely do nothing to stop the unfolding civil war in Iraq and could make the situation even worse - if it is imaginable that conditions there could deteriorate further - by relaxing the pressure on Iraqi forces to stand up on their own. If anything, this increase in troop levels being proposed by the president is several years late from when it could have done some good, during a time when the country wasn't gripped by a civil war.

Bush's policies will no longer be rubber-stamped now that Democrats, not Republicans, control the House and Senate. Indeed, it is possible that a significant number of Republicans may back nonbinding resolutions being drafted that would oppose the president's escalation of the war.

It is obvious the president still is seeking a military solution, not a political or a diplomatic one. The result will be to continue a terribly costly war, in terms of lives lost and billions of dollars wasted, and a further destabilization of the Mideast.