White House Ready to Alter Course in Iraq

Succumbing to growing alarm over Iraq, the Bush administration indicated Friday that it is embarking on a midcourse correction of its troubled strategy barely four months after the war to oust Saddam Hussein ended.

The White House announced that President Bush will address the nation Sunday night about Iraq, as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered a major speech in which he said that Washington is prepared to “adjust and adapt” its approach.

Just what form the changes will take was uncertain, but the steps by Bush and Powell culminated a week of new U.S. initiatives and statements that sought to cultivate international cooperation and repair alliances that have fractured over the last year.

They included the decision to seek a new United Nations resolution that would give the world body a greater role in Iraq -- a bid to garner more foreign troops and funds for the country’s reconstruction.

Bush’s address will be his first since his May 1 speech aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln announcing an end to major combat in Iraq. But more Americans have died in Iraq since that date than before it, and the continued violence has led to growing criticism of the administration’s policies.

Powell declared that the United States now wants to renew and reinvigorate partnerships around the globe. He affirmed the importance of U.S. cooperation with the United Nations, NATO and “other precious alliances.”

“Above all, the president’s strategy is a strategy of partnerships,” Powell said in a hastily organized speech at George Washington University in the nation’s capital. “And the president’s strategy ... calls for new partnerships, new alliances to meet new challenges.”

Powell’s conciliatory words were seen here as further evidence that Washington may no longer be as strident in its sometimes abrasive and often controversial policy of going it alone in global hot spots.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks two years ago, the administration has increasingly centered its actions abroad on a strategy of “preemptive strikes” to eliminate threats before they do damage, a concept Bush formally outlined in a speech last year at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He pledged that the United States would act unilaterally if others failed to act.

But Powell’s speech, planned with and approved by the White House, struck a different tone. It suggested that Washington now appears willing to accommodate policy differences to avoid another bruising clash with allies over Iraq at the United Nations after a year of mounting tension with both friends and foes.

“Today, the world’s great powers find themselves on the same side,” he said. “Instead of wasting lives and treasure opposing each other as in the past, today’s powers can pull in the same direction to solve problems common to all. And if we do pull together we will begin to redeem history from so much human folly.”

In a 15-minute address at 5:30 p.m. PDT Sunday, the president will emphasize the importance of staying the course in Iraq while trying to candidly outline some of the likely cost in additional American lives and resources, U.S. officials said. Sources also said Bush may announce a supplemental budget request for more than $80 billion and possibly as much as $90 billion to fund Iraq operations over the next year, although U.S. officials said they were still scrambling late Friday to come up with a final figure.

In Indianapolis on Friday, Bush pledged that the United States would “spend what it takes” to win the war on terrorism and defend American interests. But he acknowledged that the military costs were aggravating the budget deficit, now nearing $500 billion.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president decided last week, after addressing the American Legion convention in St. Louis, that the time was right to give the nation a progress report on the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq.

“The president recognizes an important responsibility to keep the American people informed about progress in the war on terrorism,” McClellan told reporters.

Republican and Democratic congressional leaders Friday called on Bush to give specific answers to tough questions about the U.S.-led occupation.

“I hope he will emphasize the need for immediate international support in order to help move Iraq toward independence and Iraqi self-governance. America cannot sustain this burden alone,” said Sen. Charles Hagel (R-Neb.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who recently was in Iraq.

The administration’s plans to address the increasingly unsettled mood about Iraq policy were announced as the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council held their first informal discussions on the proposed new U.N. resolution in New York.

The meeting took place at Britain’s diplomatic mission, outside of U.N. headquarters and without interpreters, so ambassadors could sound off freely, at least temporarily setting aside the official negotiating instructions from their governments.

The talks focused on how to strengthen the U.N. role in speeding the transfer of power from the U.S.-led occupation authority to an Iraqi government. Many countries have asked for a concrete timetable for elections and the return of sovereignty to Iraq.

The U.S. has proposed that the interim Iraqi Governing Council make the decision on elections, but Arab nations have refused to recognize the council’s authority. To bridge that problem, some council members suggested that Secretary-General Kofi Annan work with the Governing Council, in effect lending his legitimacy to cover the council’s lack of it.

Ambassadors described the mood afterward as “very positive,” even those from Germany and France, which had initially criticized the draft.

“There’s a lot of work to do still, but the meeting this morning was in a very constructive mood. There was no confrontation,” said the German ambassador to the U.N., Gunter Pleuger. “Every member of the council wanted to make a contribution that would add to the significance and to the effectiveness of that resolution.”

Chilean Ambassador Heraldo Munoz said diplomats skirted the issue of a U.S.-led multinational force. Instead, talk centered on a greater role for the U.N. and a more specific timeline for the transfer of sovereignty.

“If we do that, I think we will have crossed a good part of the bridge we need to cross,” said Munoz. “I think there may be a vote before the speech [at the General Assembly later this month] of President Bush. We can be moderately optimistic.”

Russia offered tentative encouragement for the initiative when Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Russia was “prepared to work on the new draft” and would not rule out participating in a peacekeeping operation in Iraq under U.S. control, as long as it was under the auspices of the U.N.

“Russia is not allergic to the United States being in command as long as these forces commanded by the United States act under U.N. Security Council mandate,” Ivanov said Friday during a trip to Uzbekistan. His remarks were carried by Interfax.

The proposed draft to share responsibility for security and reconstruction in Iraq has also elicited tentatively positive language from China and Mexico, both countries that resisted a proposed U.N. resolution last spring to approve the use of force in Iraq.

After meeting with Powell on Friday, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez called the U.S. initiative “a very good step” and said he was pleased with the initial discussions. “We are putting together something that will make sense for the Iraqi people and for all the 15 governments that are in the Security Council,” he told reporters.

France, a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, remained the biggest question mark Friday. In an interview with Le Figaro, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said the key step is “an immediate move” to devolve political power to the Iraqis. “This is the real starting point,” he said. “The status quo is not acceptable.”

France, after talks with Germany, Russia and Britain, plans to make its own proposals for a “comprehensive approach” in the near future, De Villepin said. At the same time, he added, Paris wants to find a way for an agreement at the United Nations.

Staff writers Maura Reynolds in Indianapolis, Maggie Farley at the United Nations, Kim Murphy in Moscow and Richard Simon in Washington contributed to this report.