3,000 US dead, just one tear

Marine Corporal Jason Dunham, 22, fell on a hand grenade in order to save his squad during fighting in Iraq two years ago. Yesterday the president, meeting the soldier's parents in the White House's East Room, awarded him a posthumous Medal of Honor, the United States' highest military decoration.

"He was the guy who signed on for an extra two months in Iraq so he could stay with his squad. As he explained it, he wanted to 'make sure that everyone makes it home alive,' " the president said. "Corporal Dunham took that promise seriously and would give his own life to make it good."

The moment clearly affected the world's most powerful man, but he wiped the tear away and soon after left for Fort Benning, Georgia, home to the 3rd Brigade of the US army's 3rd Infantry Division, which will deploy early to Iraq to support Mr Bush's plan to bring security to Baghdad and the strife-torn Anbar province.

That plan was the subject of fierce criticism in Washington yesterday.

Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic Majority Leader declared: "In choosing to escalate the war the president virtually stands alone."

Mr Reid said he will schedule a vote on a non-binding bill expressing disapproval of Mr Bush's policy, but Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell threatened to delay or prevent a vote.

In appearances in Congress, at news briefings and on television programmes, Bush administration officials worked to persuade the newly Democratic-controlled Congress to accept Mr Bush's troop build-up as the last chance for reversing Iraq's slide.

Mr Bush's new strategy increases US forces in Iraq by 21,500 on the current level of 127,000 and demands greater cooperation from the Iraqi government.

The main battlefield for the administration was the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, was grilled by members from both parties.

Chuck Hagel, a Republican senator told Ms Rice the president's plan was "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder since Vietnam, if it's carried out."

And another Republican member, Senator George Voinovich, said Mr Bush could no longer count on his support.

"You're going to have to do a much better job," explaining the rationale for the war, "and so is the president," Mr Voinovich told Ms Rice. "I've gone along with the president on this and at this stage of the game I just don't think its going to happen."

Ms Rice acknowledged widespread concerns about the war both among members of Congress and ordinary Americans.

"I want you to know that I understand and indeed feel the heartbreak that Americans feel at the continued sacrifice of American lives, men and women who can never be replaced for their families, and for the concern of our men and women who are still in harm's way," she said.

"This is a time for a national imperative not to fail in Iraq," she added.

Options for critics of the war are limited; Democratic leaders have mulled a resolution of disapproval and there also has been talk of attaching a host of conditions to approval of a spending bill to cover the costs of the new deployment.

Meanwhile, Robert Gates, the new defence secretary, said he could not answer the key question of how long the build-up would last. "It's viewed as a temporary surge, but I think no-one has a really clear idea of how long that might be," Mr Gates told a White House briefing.

But he also said the US should know "pretty soon" whether Iraqis were living up to their part of the deal and increasing their own forces.

Ms Rice engaged in a tense exchange with Mr Hagel, a Vietnam veteran, long a critic of Mr Bush's Iraq policy, and a presidential hopeful in 2008.

"Putting in 22,000 more troops is not an escalation?" Mr Hagel asked.

"I think, senator, escalation is not just a matter of how many numbers you put in," Ms Rice replied.

"Would you call it a decrease?" Mr Hagel asked.

"I would call it, senator, an augmentation that allows the Iraqis to deal with this very serious problem that they have in Baghdad," she said.

Mr Hagel told Ms Rice, "Madam secretary, Iraqis are killing Iraqis. We are in a civil war. This is sectarian violence out of control."

She disputed that Iraq was in the throes of a civil war. To that, Mr Hagel said, "To sit there and say that, that's just not true."

Revealing the strain the military is under, Mr Gates called yesterday for a permanent boost in the size of the army and Marine Corps. Mr Gates recommended adding 92,000 over five years.

CRUCIAL ALLY HAS FAILED TO DELIVER

PRESIDENT Bush's latest approach in Iraq depends on another new approach, from an Iraqi leader who has failed US expectations at every turn.

Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has failed to deliver the unified government or additional troops he promised. And he has protected his political footing at the expense of his US sponsors' goals.

Dan Bartlett, a White House counsellor, said yesterday that US forces in Baghdad "sometimes were handcuffed by political interference by the Iraqi leadership", but he claimed that would change.

Despite pledges from Mr Maliki's Shiite-led government for greater co-operation, the Iraqi leader has stumbled politically while the country has fallen deeper into chaos and distrust. And he failed to provide promised Iraqi troops last summer as part of a security crackdown in Baghdad that has produced few results.

Mr Bush has repeatedly endorsed Mr Maliki as a patriot and a strong leader. But at home, he is increasingly seen as a partisan Shiite politically beholden to the anti-US cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr.

Mr Maliki has reportedly told Mr Bush he will not stand in the way of a military push against sectarian militias, including Mr Sadr's powerful Mahdi Army, which underpins his political support. Shiite militias are blamed for the widespread killings of Sunnis that have pushed the country close to civil war.

Mr Sadr's support was crucial to Mr Maliki's election, and although relations between the two men have since become strained, the prime minister has resisted using Iraqi forces in any offensive against the cleric.

At the same time, the Iraqi government has given US forces a free hand against Sunni militants.