Now that Iraq Commander Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker have made their report to Congress, President Bush will announce in a speech at the White House today that he is accepting their advice and ordering a halt to U.S troop withdrawals this summer. Petraeus has counseled the pause in troop drawdowns for a 45-day assessment of Iraqi security forces ability to maintain security gains made by the troop surge. The president will announce that he will not order any additional troop withdrawals until mid-September at the earliest, depending on conditions on the ground.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the text of an angry letter she addressed to President Bush in anticipation of his remarks.

"General Petraeus admitted on Tuesday that `we haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel' [in Iraq]. The American people are entitled to know when they will receive a more hopeful report than the one provided by General Petraeus, and what changes in policy you will make to achieve it before you leave office."

But just last week, Pelosi warned Gen. Petraeus not to, "put a shine on recent events," in Iraq, particularly in Basra. Apparently, from the text and tone of her letter, however, the Speaker wishes he had not heeded that warning.

Petraeus's sober and convincing assessment of the condition in Iraq, he termed progress there as, "significant but uneven," and, "fragile and reversible," has won over the president and the civilian and military command inside the Pentagon. At the end of last year, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military advisers to the president, came out publicly against a pause in U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, fearing that further delays would result in additional strain on the Army and Marine Corps. The former commander of U.S. Central Command, Petraeus's commanding officer, Admiral William Fallon, was also reported to be against the idea. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced his support for the Petraeus plan in early January, ending any doubt that the president himself would not ultimately accept the general's advice.

The president will also announce a reduction in the length of combat tours for units assigned to Iraq. Beginning with units deployed to Iraq after August 1, combat tours will be reduced from 15 months to 12 months, a move that should please those in the Pentagon that are concerned with the strain on the armed forces. Even with the shorter tours and the continuing troop withdrawals until July, there will still be 15 brigades, about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq for the November elections.

Before the surge strategy was announced in early 2007, Democrats and war critics urged the president to "listen to the generals," and settle on a course of withdrawal from Iraq rather than surging troops into the middle of a violent civil war. Now, however, the brilliant leadership of Gen. Petraeus has turned the Iraq war from an unwinnable one, in the minds of those critics, to one in which the United States stands a very good likelihood of success. President Bush is listening to Petraeus, who has been proven to have been right about Iraq all along. Democrats and war critics should take their own advice and listen to him as well.