WASHINGTON - Top US congressional Democrats bluntly told President George W. Bush Wednesday that his Iraq troop "surge" policy was a failure, as the Pentagon submitted a report saying early results of the strategy were mixed.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter ahead of a White House meeting later on Wednesday.
The escalation "has failed to produce the intended results," Reid and Pelosi wrote, saying that the larger US force "has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation.
"It has not enhanced America's national security. The unsettling reality is that instances of violence against Iraqis remain high and attacks on US forces have increased.
"In fact, the last two months of the war were the deadliest to date for US troops."
The letter appeared to preview a fresh showdown over Iraq between anti-war Democrats and the president, just a few weeks after Bush forced his foes to strip troop withdrawal timelines from a 100 billion dollar emergency war budget.
Pelosi and Reid also told Bush that they planned to send him new legislation to "limit the US mission in Iraq, begin the phased redeployment of US forces, and bring the war to a responsible end."
The United States is sending 30,000 more troops into Iraq as part of a strategy announced by Bush in January to bring down violence in Baghdad and the restive, Sunni-majority Al-Anbar province.
The reinforcements are being sent over several months with the last combat brigade due to be operational later this month, raising the US military contingent in Iraq to 160,000.
Bush, speaking at a fundraising dinner for Republican congressional candidates in Washington, said he had talked Wednesday to the commander of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, about the surge.
"The final troops have just arrived," Bush said, reporting "some progress and some setbacks."
The Pentagon report submitted Wednesday to Congress, which covers the period between February and May 2007, said the surge was "a greatly increased effort to secure turbulent areas to give Iraqis political space to implement reforms and pursue reconciliation among competing factions."
It added: "It is too soon to assess results."
"Positive indicators include a decrease in civilian murders and sectarian violence in Baghdad and in total attacks in Anbar province, while negative indicators include the rise of high-profile attacks and expanded use of explosively formed projectiles."
The report, which is a quarterly assessment on progress on the war in Iraq mandated by law, says that reconciliation among the Iraq's diverse factions "remains a serious unfulfilled objective."
The country's "principal economic driver," oil production, "is not growing and remained at about the same levels as during this period in 2006 due to poor infrastructure and inadequate security," it added.
The report and the letter come just days after the US military mourned its 3,500th soldier killed in action in Iraq and amid more bloodshed in Iraq.
Suspected Al-Qaeda militants blew up Wednesday the two minarets of a revered Shiite shrine in the Iraqi town of Samarra, 15 months after a first bombing at the mosque sparked brutal sectarian killings.
The bombing threatens to spark another surge in sectarian violence that could doom US efforts in Iraq.
The next critical point in the showdown between Bush and Congress over Iraq is expected in September, when Petraeus is due to report on progress in the "surge".
Even senior Republicans have said they expected the president will have little choice but to make adjustments in the Iraq strategy, once the report is made public.
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