By Caren Bohan WASHINGTON, July 10 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will emphasize on Tuesday that his strategy in Iraq is aimed at eventually bringing U.S. troops home, as he seeks to stem growing Republican defections from his war policy. With senior lawmakers like Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, calling for a shift, the White House is increasingly worried about further erosion of Republican support. Bush has asked for more time to allow the troop surge he ordered at the start of the year to work. A report he must deliver to Congress by July 15 on progress by Iraq's government will show mixed results and is likely to fuel debate. It "will present a picture of satisfactory progress on some benchmarks and not on others. This is to be expected given the report is a preliminary snapshot of what are the early stages of the full surge," a senior administration official said. At an appearance in Cleveland, Ohio, Bush will stress that the troop buildup is part of an attempt to lay the groundwork for an eventual drawdown of U.S. forces. "He will talk about Iraq in Ohio," said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid upstaging Bush's remarks. "He will continue to discuss what we need to do bring stability to Iraq." Bush has said repeatedly that the troops will come home from Iraq when security conditions warrant. PLUMMETING SUPPORT Public support for the war has plummeted and Bush's own approval ratings are at the lowest of his presidency. A new USA Today/Gallup poll showed on Tuesday that more than seven in 10 Americans favor withdrawing nearly all U.S troops from Iraq by April. Sixty-two percent said the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, marking the first time that number has topped 60 percent in that survey. The poll also showed support for Bush slipping among Republicans, who gave him a 68 percent rating, down from an average 92 percent in his first term and 82 percent earlier in his second, USA Today said. Reflecting growing impatience among Republicans for change, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander pushed a proposal to embrace the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group calling for a shift for U.S. troops away from a combat role and toward training and supporting Iraqi troops. "The surge by itself in my opinion is not a strategy," Alexander told CNN. Senate Democrats plan to hold votes on troop pullouts, hoping to capitalize on Republican defections to build a congressional majority around an exit strategy. Senate debate on Iraq would be part of work on a defense policy bill, beginning with a vote, possibly on Tuesday, on Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb's plan to establish minimum rest times between deployments for troops in Iraq, some of whom have done several tours of duty. The White House has denied a New York Times report that debate was intensifying within the administration over whether Bush should try to prevent more Republican defections by announcing intentions for a gradual withdrawal of troops from high-casualty areas.
