After US intelligence painted a grim picture of US president George W. Bush's plan for Iraq and as a congressional rebuke loomed, Bush sought bipartisan help from Democrats on bringing the war to an end.
Gone was Bush's insistence upon being "the decider" on Iraq policy as he addressed Democrats of the House of Representatives which, like the Senate, is under Democratic control largely thanks to voter impatience with his highly unpopular wartime performance.
"I put out a plan that has caused a lot of debate on Iraq," Bush said of his war strategy, about which doubts were raised by a stark review of the war situation in a report from Washington's 16 intelligence agencies on Friday.
"I listened to many members here. I listened to members of my own party. I listened to the military and came up with a plan that I genuinely believe has the best chance of succeeding," he told Democrats meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia, south of Washington, on Saturday.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the crowd: "The choice is bipartisanship or stalemate," the Washington Post reported yesterday.
And she told lawmakers that "if it appears likely that Bush wants to take the country to war against Iran, the House would take up a bill to deny him the authority to do so," the Post quoted Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly as saying.
Bush spoke in Williamsburg a day after the issue of the new official National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. In the parts of the report released to the public, Iraq was described as on the brink of chaos.
Meanwhile, all four US helicopters which have crashed in Iraq since Jan. 20 appear to have been brought down by "some kind" of ground fire but it is unclear whether this represents any new threat to US aviation, the chief US military spokesman said yesterday.
It was the first time that the US command has publicly acknowledged that one private and three Army helicopters were probably shot down.
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