President Bush says he wants to "wait and see"
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US President George W Bush says he will put a freeze on the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, as requested by his top general in the country.
In a statement the president said the "drawdown" would continue until July as planned, but then the military would need time to assess the next step.
He said he had told his senior commander General David Petraeus "he'll have all the time he needs".
Mr Bush also said a "major strategic shift" had occurred in Iraq.
He said the past 15 months had seen military and political progress, and that "today we have the initiative".
By July the US presence should be reduced from 20 brigades to 15 - leaving about 140,000 troops in Iraq, about the same number as were present before the US "surge" began in early 2007.
Mr Bush is portraying the withdrawal as a sign of the success for the surge, and is trying to make as much capital from it as possible, says the BBC's Adam Brookes in Baghdad.
But by referring to a "major strategic shift" he has used language that Gen Petraeus and US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker have deliberately avoided, our correspondent adds.
Gen Petraeus said the situation in Iraq was still unsatisfactory
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Mr Bush also said he was cutting tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan from 15 to 12 months, effective from 1 August, and that service personnel would have a year at home for every year served overseas.
The decision to halt withdrawals means the US presence in Iraq is likely to last well beyond January, when Mr Bush will leave office and a new president will take over.
Iraq is one of the key battlegrounds of the election campaign, with Republican John McCain arguing for continued engagement while Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama call for full withdrawal.
Progress
In testimony on Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee, Gen Petraeus said progress had been made in Iraq but many challenges remained.
He said the suspension of troop withdrawals after July would allow a period of reassessment.
Gen Petraeus told the House panel he was unlikely to call for another build-up of troops in Iraq even if the security situation deteriorated after some troops came home.
"That would be a pretty remote thought in my mind," he said.
He has said a planned "drawdown" of about 20,000 troops should continue to July, but afterwards there should be a 45-day "period of consolidation and evaluation" before any more troops leave.
Gen Petraeus could not say how many US troops would be in Iraq at the end of the year. There are currently 160,000 in Iraq.
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