WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. security operations in Baghdad are fundamentally flawed and President Bush will propose a "new course" during a televised address Wednesday night, a White House official said.
In the speech, set for 9 p.m. ET, Bush will announce a plan to send about 20,000 more troops to Iraq in an effort to pacify Baghdad, according to an unnamed U.S. official who spoke to CNN on Tuesday.
Bush will propose an "Iraqi initiative" that requires U.S. support, Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, told CNN on Wednesday.
"What we've seen time and time again in the security operations we've attempted in the past in Baghdad had two real fundamental flaws," Bartlett said. Operations did not include enough Iraqi or U.S. troops "to hold the neighborhoods we had cleared throughout Baghdad," he said.
"Rules of engagement -- where troops could go, who they could go after --were severely restricted by politics in Baghdad," Bartlett said. "That's going to change as well."
"The president will chart a new course in Iraq tonight, one that will expect very different results, particularly from the Iraqis."
Iraq's fledgling government has been strained by infighting while sectarian violence and insurgent attacks have plagued many parts of the capital.
"It gives us the best chance to give the Iraqi government the kind of breathing space they're going to need to have political reconciliation," Bartlett said.
Iraq in control by November
The unnamed U.S. official said Bush intends to hand control of the country to Iraqi forces by November, the official said.
Most of the additional 20,000 troops will be deployed in Baghdad, where American and Iraqi troops fought a 10-hour street battle with insurgents on Tuesday. ()
But about 4,000 would be deployed to restive Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency, the official said.
The first troops in the new wave could be a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division that is already in Kuwait, Pentagon sources said.
The official cautioned that the November date for Iraq control does not mean U.S. troops would withdraw by then.
Sources familiar with the White House deliberations also said that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had promised Bush that he would redeploy a large number of Iraqi troops from other parts of the country to help secure Baghdad. Those Iraqi troops' main goal would be to neutralize Shiite militias loyal to influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Maliki has been reluctant to move against the militias until now because al-Sadr's political support has been crucial to al-Maliki's rise to power and continuation in office.
The additional deployment would be coupled with about $1 billion in new economic aid, on top of the more than $30 billion already committed to Iraq, the White House sources said.
The first deployments would begin by the end of January, a U.S. official said.
Supporters say more troops are needed to stave off a U.S. defeat in the nearly four-year-old war, which has cost more than $400 billion and the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops. ()
"This is a commander-in-chief who has decided not to fail in Iraq," Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said after a meeting at the White House. "I found his arguments and his strategies persuasive."
The general public appears less convinced, as recent polls show little support for sending more troops.
Even supporters of a troop increase are unlikely to be satisfied, as some advocates have said as many as 35,000 more U.S. troops would be needed to be effective.
Congress may vote on plan
Several U.S. senators on Tuesday voiced their opposition to sending more troops to Iraq. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, proposed a bill requiring congressional approval for any increase in troops. (Full story)
"The last thing that the American people want is to insert tens of thousands of new American troops into a civil war in Iraq, and they want the Congress to do something," Kennedy said on CNN's "The Situation Room."
He called the proposed deployment "an immense new mistake."
Democrats will hash out details Wednesday at their regular caucus meeting, said Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the caucus chairman, said Bush needed to answer some questions -- including what the additional troops will be doing, how long they will be deployed and what benchmarks for success will be set -- before he wins the support of Congress.
"If the president and the Pentagon cannot answer these critical questions about an escalation of the war in Iraq, I see no reason why the Congress or the American people should give their blessing to such an escalation," Emanuel, D-Illinois, said in a written statement.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said senators are working on a nonbinding resolution opposing more troops, and he said several Republicans are likely to support it. (Full story)
"I really believe that if we can come up with a bipartisan approach to this escalation, it will do more to change the direction of that war in Iraq than any other thing that we can do," he said.
Familiar strategy
It wouldn't be the first time Bush has boosted troop levels in Iraq to try to gain the upper hand.
Last summer the U.S. launched "Operation Together Forward" with Iraqi troops in an effort to quell the violence in Baghdad. Despite an increase of almost 10,000 U.S. troops in the capital, the violence there worsened.
A top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, said that plan focused too much on Sunni insurgents and not enough on Shiite death squads, but said the U.S. will have a more "balanced approach" this time.