Bush's Call for Consensus Fails to Bridge Divide Over Iraq

The extent to which the Iraq war has divided the US was fully exposed early today when George Bush appealed in his annual state of the union address for more time to turn the conflict round.

With support for him among the public and Congress, and even Republicans, ebbing away, he argued that whatever the motivations of members of Congress at the time of the war, there was a consensus in the US that the war had to be won.

"This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in," he said.

In contrast with previous years when his pronouncements on Iraq were cheered by Congressmen, his passage on Iraq was listened to largely in silence. The divide was clearest when Dick Cheney, the vice-president and administration hawk, sitting behind the president, rose to applaud Mr Bush while Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House and war critic, remained seated. Elsewhere in the chamber, some Republicans also stood to applaud, but many Congressmen refused to rise.

Mr Bush, in his 53-minute speech, the sixth of his presidency, attempted to regain some of the authority that has ebbed away from him in recent months, but especially in the last fortnight over his unpopular decision to send extra US troops to Iraq.

He devoted about half the speech to foreign policy, mainly Iraq, and half to domestic issues. The most eye-catching of the domestic initiatives was a proposal to try to tackle America's love affair with oil by setting an ambitious target to reduce petrol consumption within ten years by 20%. He set out a plan to achieve this through increased use of ethanol and other bio-fuel alternatives and through car manufacturers making their products more fuel-efficient.

Other domestic initiatives included a proposal to offer temporary status to immigrant workers, which he has proposed before and failed to get through Congress, and health care reform.

His address was dominated by Iraq. He said: "Every one of us wishes that this war were over and won. Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned and our own security at risk. On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle. So let us find our resolve and turn events toward victory."

State of the union addresses are notable for the odd ritual in which members of Congress from both parties jump regularly to their feet to applaud the president. But he only secured that applause towards the end of the passage on the war when he called for support for the troops going to Iraq. "And I ask you to support our troops in the field and those on their way," he said. It was a clever construction by the White House, designed to get at least one show of unity on Iraq. Few members of Congress, in spite of a majority in both chambers against the troop increase, could sit through a public call to back American troops. Ms Pelosi joined Mr Cheney in rising to applaud that sentiment.

But the mood on Capitol Hill, and the country, is now so predominantly anti-war and Mr Bush failed to change minds. Although he has two years to run and still has the power to embark on another war - though that is unlikely - the speech may mark the point at which his presidency was effectively over, at least in terms of getting his programme through and being listened to on Iraq.

Members of both chambers will today continue with preparations for a resolution condemning the troop increase, backed by Democrats and dissident Republicans. The White House for the first time yesterday acknowledged it was going to lose the resolution.

The other notable point from the foreign policy passage was repeated jibes at Iran, particularly allegations that it was heavily involved in Iraq.

On the domestic front, Mr Bush's energy initiative, dubbed "Twenty-ten" by the White House, was intended to be centrepiece of his speech.

Mr Bush's energy initiative comes after a steady increase in US oil consumption, of which 60% comes from overseas, mainly the Middle East and Venezuela, up from 53% in 2000.

Currently, 46% of petrol sold in the US contains about 10% ethanol. There are 114 ethanol plants in the US, with a total annual capacity of 5.48bn gallons. A further 70 plants are under construction.

The president is proposing to set the amount of ethanol and other alternative fuels that must be mixed into the fuel supply at 35bn gallons by 2017, up from 7.5bn gallons in 2012. He also wants to see wider use of other oil alternatives, such as biodiesel, methanol, butanol and hydrogen.

In addition to a switch to ethanol, Mr Bush sees other reductions coming through car manufacturers raising fuel economy standards for passenger cars, which have not been revised since 1990. This will be voluntary rather than mandatory.

The move comes a year after Mr Bush described Americans as being "addicted to oil". Americans enjoy cheap petrol, roughly half the price charged at European pumps. A Pew Research Centre survey last year showed there are 204m personal vehicles on the road in the US. While the rest of the world has focused on economy and efficiency, Americans have been turning to bigger, faster, and more expensive models.

Although at first sight it might look as if Mr Bush has been converted on climate change, he is far from having gone green. He remains sceptical about climate change, continuing to insist that the case has still to be made on global warming and that reductions in carbon emissions, blamed for global warmings, have to be voluntary.

His new proposal is motivated partly by security concerns - the US dependence on oil from the volatile Middle East. His enthusiasm for ethanol is shared by American farmers and Republicans representing heavily agricultural states.

The president's initiative comes as scientific sources told Reuters that a UN-climate panel, to report next week in Paris, will predict that by 2100 global warming, blamed on humans, will bring more droughts, floods and rising seas.

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may bring some good news, however, by toning down predictions of the biggest temperature and sea level rises projected in the IPCC's previous 2001 study, the sources said. But it will also revise up its lowest projections.

Towards the end of his speech, as is the tradition, Mr Bush applauded four invited guests: a football player who went back to his home in Congo to build a hospital; an entrepreneur and philanthropist; a man involved in a rail rescue; and a US soldier involved in Iraq.