President Bush said yesterday that he might send more troops to Iraq. Or he may bring some home.

“I haven’t made any decisions about troop increases or decreases, and won’t until I hear from a variety of sources,” he said on a visit to Indonesia.

Those sources include a pending internal review of the war from the Pentagon and other parts of the Administration, as well as next month’s report of the Iraq Study Group. Advice is also pouring in from victorious congressional Democrats and would-be presidential contenders. Clarity is in shorter supply, however, as are the “fresh ideas” that Mr Bush called for a fortnight ago after chastening midterm election results.

For instance, the Pentagon’s review on Iraq, which is being conducted by General Peter Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was reported to have outlined three options: send in more troops, shrink the force but stay, or pull out. These have been crystallised as Go Big, Go Long and Go Home. But one solution gaining favour among military commanders is summed up as “Go Big but Short While Transitioning to Go Long”, according to The Washington Post. This would help the 140,000 US troops to curtail sectarian violence while also increasing training of Iraqi forces, and would signal that the US planned to reduce troop levels by perhaps more than half in the long term. The Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker, the former Secretary of State, is said to be moving towards a similar conclusion. This would replace the American commitment to building democracy with the goal of stabilising the country. A short-term increase in troops around Baghdad would be coupled with bringing nearby countries, including Iran and Syria, into talks.

Henry Kissinger, another former Secretary of State who has been consulted by the President and the Baker Commission, said that military victory was no longer possible in Iraq and called for an international conference on its future.

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