US troops in Iraq for three more years, Bush says

President Bush raised the vision of a US troop presence in Iraq that would extend for the next three years, an admission that a US withdrawal was unlikely during his term in the White House. With US forces entering their fourth year in the country since the invasion, Bush's comments suggest he foresees a longer military commitment in Iraq than that experienced by troops in the second world war or the Korean War. Asked at a Mar. 21 White House press conference whether he could foresee a complete withdrawal from Iraq, Bush held out little hope. "That will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq," Bush told reporters. He added later: "I'm optimistic we'll succeed. If not, I'd pull our troops out." The prospect that US troops could remain in Iraq into 2009 is unlikely to help Bush's efforts to reassure an increasingly doubtful domestic audience that the US is making progress in Iraq. With US casualties in Iraq reaching 2,325 dead, public confidence in the president's ability to bring the war to a successful outcome hovers just above 30 percent, as does his approval rating. Bush is rapidly losing credibility on Iraq–not least among his fellow Republicans who are increasingly nervous about November's mid-term elections. At a time when 80 percent of US citizens fear the outbreak of civil war in Iraq, Bush insisted that the wave of sectarian killings over the last month were not as dire as they appeared. "We all recognize that there is violence, that there is sectarian violence. But the way I look at the situation is that the Iraqis took a look and decided not to go to civil war."