Bush to endorse withdrawal of 30,000 Iraq troops

PRESIDENT George W. Bush is expected to endorse in a televised speech tomorrow a plan to withdraw some 30,000 US troops from Iraq by July 2008, US media reported today.

Several US newspapers including The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that Bush is expected to back the plans of General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, to gradually withdraw US troops from their current level of 168,000 to 130,000 by next summer.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed White House aides, said Bush plans to emphasise that he can order a troop reduction only because of the success achieved on the ground in Iraq, and that he is not being swayed by political opposition.

The aides said Bush will also caution that the cuts would be conditional on continued military gains and that he plans to outline what he sees as the dire consequences of failure in Iraq, according to the Post, which did not quote the officials.

Bush's spokesman announced that the president will address Americans on his plans for future US troops levels in a 15 to 20 minute speech from the White House at 9pm tomorrow (1100 AEST Friday).

The speech follows key Congressional testimony this week by Petraeus and the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, on Bush's troop "surge" strategy in which some 30,000 additional soldiers were deployed to Iraq to quell violence.

Bush will "address the nation on his proposed way forward in Iraq, obviously responding to the testimony this week," said White House spokesman Tony Snow, who refused to reveal details of the speech.

Petraeus said during two days of marathon congressional testimony this week that the surge was working, and that US troop numbers could recede back to pre-surge levels of around 130,000 by next summer.

Democrats, who took control of Congress in January, charged that Petraeus's latest Iraq strategy was a blueprint for 10 more years of war, as they rejected "rosy" claims of battlefield progress and demanded a speedy US withdrawal.