Democrats were swift to criticise the move and demanded a greater
movement of military resources against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
In
a long awaited speech the US president touted advances in security made
in Iraq, saying, "Here is the bottom line - while the enemy in Iraq is
still dangerous, we have seized the offensive, Iraqi forces are
becoming increasingly capable of leading and winning the fight."
But
Mr Bush declared he was bringing home just 8,000 US troops out of
146,000 currently serving in Iraq by February, the month after he
leaves office. He will order the deployment of half that number to
Afghanistan, acknowledging that "for all the good work we have done in
that country, it is clear we must do even more".
Mr Bush said a
marine battalion that had been scheduled to go to Iraq in November
would go to Afghanistan instead, and that that would be followed by one
army combat brigade, which would take part in a "quiet surge" against
the Taliban. There are 31,000 US troops now serving in Afghanistan,
along with 8,000 British military personnel.
Senator Barack
Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, who has advocated pulling
all American combat forces out of Iraq within 16 months of taking
office, said that keeping so many troops in Iraq would still leave the
military overstretched.
The Illinois senator said that he was
"glad that the president is moving in the direction of the policy that
I have advocated for years", by shifting troops to Afghanistan, which
the Democrat describes as the central front in the war on terror. His
rival, Republican Senator John McCain, favours keeping US troops in
Iraq for longer.
The president's announcement, made two days
before the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the
United States, represented a compromise between his senior generals.
Gen David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq who leaves the country
soon, had argued to keep troop levels close to their current levels of
146,000 until June. Others, including Adm Mike Mullen, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they believed that withdrawing troops more
quickly from Iraq represented a small risk compared with the gain that
could be made by shifting more forces to Afghanistan.
The US
meanwhile remains "dangerously vulnerable" to chemical, biological and
nuclear attacks, a forthcoming independent study concludes.
The
bipartisan Partnership for a Secure America said that efforts to reduce
access to nuclear technology and bomb-making materials have slowed,
thousands of US chemical plants remain unprotected, and Washington
continues to oppose strengthening an international treaty to prevent
bioterrorism. The study was directed by Lee Hamilton, the former
Democratic congressman who helped lead the Sept. 11 Commission.