BEIJING, Jan. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. President George W. Bush unveiled his new plan for Iraq from the White House Wednesday night local time.

No magic formula for success in Iraq

    Bush told the nation there is "no magic formula for success in Iraq" but that failure there "would be a disaster for the United States."

   "Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does," he said.

    Bush rejected ideas "to step back."  That, he said, "would force a collapse of the Iraqi government. ... Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and confront an enemy that is even more lethal."

    Bush said that if the situation in Iraq does not turn for the better, "Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits." They would then be emboldened to "topple moderate governments" and "use oil revenues to fund their ambitions."

    "Iran would also have an opportunity to ratchet up its pursuit of nuclear weapons," he said.

Bush admitted responsibility for failure in Iraq 

¡¡ Bush admitted the situation in Iraq is unacceptable and said: "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."

    He gave two reasons for the failure to secure Baghdad in particular: There are "not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods" and there are too many restrictions on the troops that are in place.

Bush will increase American forces by 20,000

   He stressed he will increase American forces by 20,000, the vast majority of them coming from "five brigades (that) will be deployed to Baghdad."  

    These troops will work alongside Iraqi units, he said.

    "Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs."

    According to Pentagon sources, the additional troops will come from a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and the 4th Brigade based in Fort Riley, Kansas.

   Additional troops will follow from Fort Lewis in Washington and Fort Stewart and Fort Benning in Georgia, the sources said. There are about 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

On Iraq's contribution

¡¡ "This plan can work ... and (Iraqi) Prime Minister (Nuri) al-Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated," Bush said. 

¡¡  Bush said only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence that has besieged their country and he said that the Iraqi government "has put forward an aggressive plan" to accomplish that.

    Bush said the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of the country's provinces by November, so as to "establish its authority."

   Iraq would pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis, and the Iraqi government would spend 10 billion U.S. dollars of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that would create new jobs, he said.

    Bush said that Iraq plans to hold provincial elections later this year, and the Iraqi government would reform de-Baathification laws and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution, to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life.

   The U.S. government would change its approach to help the Iraqi government as it worked to meet these benchmarks, he said.

   According to Pentagon sources, the Iraqi army will add three army brigades to Baghdad to make it an Iraqi-led operation. The Iraqi troops' main goal would be to neutralize Shiite militias loyal to influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

(Agencies)