President George W. Bush said on Thursday the Pentagon would halt troop reductions in Iraq this summer but that deployments would be shortened to ease the stress on the military.

Mr Bush was endorsing the recommendation of General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, to have a 45-day pause following the departure of the combat forces that made up the “surge”. He vowed to give the four-star general “all the time he needs” to assess the impact unwinding the surge would have on security in Iraq.