Speaking from the White House on January 11, 2007, President Bush said: ” ‘The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me… Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me. …It is clear that we need to change our strategy in Iraq,’ he continued, logically. He laid out with some precision how he envisioned it working, with a new Iraqi command structure for Baghdad and new Iraqi troops injected to conduct patrols and operate checkpoints. …To make this work, he said, he would send ‘more than twenty thousand additional troops to Iraq.’ ”
– Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble, Page 122