Tours Get Shorter as Iraq Improves

President Bush, in a rare 8 AM statement, announced that effective tomorrow, combat tours for all new units deployed to Iraq will be shortened to twelve months from the current 15 months. The president cited the continuing improvements in the security situation in Iraq as a reason for the change, noting that violence in July was at its lowest levels in more than four years.

This has been a month of encouraging news from Iraq. Violence is down to its lowest level since the spring of 2004, and we're now in our third consecutive month with reduced violence levels holding steady. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker caution that the progress is still reversible, but they report that there now appears to be a "degree of durability" to the gains we have made. [...]

The progress in Iraq has allowed us to continue our policy of "return on success." We now have brought home all five of the combat brigades and the three Marine units that were sent to Iraq as part of the surge. The last of these surge brigades returned home this month. And later this year, General Petraeus will present me his recommendations on future troop levels -- including further reductions in our combat forces as conditions permit.

As part of the "return on success" policy, we are also reducing the length of combat tours in Iraq. Beginning tomorrow, troops deploying to Iraq will serve 12-month tours instead of 15-month tours. This will ease the burden on our forces -- and it will make life easier for our wonderful military families.

In another sign of success in Iraq, the leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq has reportedly fled to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Iraqi intelligence units say that the leader of the group, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, crossed into Iran bound for Afghanistan in early June. The news comes as Iraqi Army and U.S. combat troops launched an offensive against the group's last remaining area of operation in Iraq in Diyala province this week.

The surge is officially over, as all the combat brigades sent into Iraq beginning in the spring of last year have now been removed. But its effectiveness continues to be demonstrated in the daily lives of Iraqis, and in the growing confidence of the Iraqi government. One side effect of that confidence is the stalled negotiations over a Status of Forces Agreement, which will dictate the scope of a future U.S. troop presence in Iraq. The Iraqi government, as any sovereign government would, is holding out for a deal that satisfies its domestic political considerations as well as secures the country. The Bush Administration had hoped to have a deal completed by the end of July, but now admits that that deadline will slip by at least a couple of days.