Bush told not to increase troops in Iraq

US President George Bush is facing determined opposition to his plan to increase US troops in Iraq with new Democrat congressional leaders urging him not to up the US troop commitment in the troubled country.

New House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said adding a large number of U.S. forces in Iraq would be a mistake.

"We are well past the point of more troops for Iraq," the two wrote in a letter to Bush. Instead, Pelosi and Reid urged Bush to begin pulling troops out in four to six months. Bush told more than a dozen senators on Friday that he would settle on the option only if the Iraqi government offered certain guarantees.

``We believe this tactic would be a serious mistake,'' Reid said in the Democratic Party's weekly radio address, discussing the so-called surge option, where thousands more troops would be sent to Iraq to quell sectarian violence.

President George W. Bush is preparing to lay out a plan next week for new steps in Iraq. Among the options under discussion is boosting the number of U.S. forces in Iraq, now at about 140,000. Proposals for an increase range from 8,000 more troops to as many as 30,000. The president hasn't indicated which direction he favors but here is growing expectation he will increase numbers by 20,000.

``We hope the President will make clear to the Iraqi government that the time has come for them to assume more responsibility for their future, and that he will announce he is beginning the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months,'' Reid said in the radio address.