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President Barack Obama visited Texas to thank troops at a military base ahead of a speech Tuesday in which he will declare the end of America's seven-year-long combat mission in Iraq.

In keeping his promise to end the war that he opposed from the start, Mr. Obama is wagering that the wobbly Baghdad government can hold together against a still-dangerous insurgency.

The president vowed to withdraw all but 50,000 US troops by Aug. 31, a reduction of about 90,000 forces by the end of his first 20 months in office. American commanders reached that goal last week, the same seven-day period during which insurgent bombers and gunmen killed 50 Iraqis.

Before sitting down to speak from behind his desk in the White House Oval Office Tuesday night, Mr. Obama went to Fort Bliss in Texas to thank warriors at a base that provided much of the heavy armour and thousands of troops who served multiple tours in Iraq.

US presidents rarely address Americans from their official office. On Tuesday, Mr. Obama will have chosen the Oval Office twice since mid-June. Earlier, he addressed the nation about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The timing of the speech appears aimed at reminding Americans of the importance of the departure from Iraq as Mr. Obama's popularity is flagging largely because of the troubled US economy.

With November congressional elections just two months away, Mr. Obama is looking for a foreign policy boost before voting that could see his fellow Democrats lose their majority in the House of Representatives, and, perhaps, also in the Senate.

In that light, the Iraq speech precedes by two days a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Mr. Obama had pledged to make peace in the Middle East a top agenda item in the first weeks of his presidency, but progress has been halting and expectations are low for the coming new round of negotiations.

The US war in Iraq has been fraught for Mr. Obama, a critic of that conflict even as he has significantly increased American firepower and troop strength in the longer, nearly 9-year-long fight in Afghanistan.

He opposed invading Iraq from the outset, a position seen as partially behind his victory over Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic nominating contest and his wide victory over Republican Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential vote.

Mr. Obama also was a vocal opponent in the Senate when former President George W. Bush boosted US troop strength by thousands in 2006, an infusion of force, known as the “surge,” credited with pulling the country back from the precipice of civil war.

Now, that history — combined with his administration's troubled record in pulling the country out of a catastrophic economic downturn — leaves Mr. Obama in a delicate position as he celebrates the conclusion of the United States' involvement in Iraq.

Appearing on nationally broadcast interviews Tuesday morning, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs repeatedly brushed aside questions about whether Mr. Obama would credit Bush's troop surge with helping to pave the way for the withdrawal.

“What is certainly not up for question is that President Obama and then candidate Obama said that adding those 30,000 people into Iraq would add to the security of Iraq,” the spokesman said. But he also said “a number of things” brought the United States to this point, including the move toward greater political accommodation among the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions.

Top Republicans, however, were in no doubt about the effectiveness of the surge. “Some leaders who opposed, criticized, and fought tooth-and-nail to stop the surge strategy now proudly claim credit for the results,” House Republican leader John Boehner said, in excerpts of a speech he was to give to the American Legion convention in Milwaukee.

On his way to Texas, Mr. Obama called Mr. Bush from Air Force One. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the call to Bush lasted a few minutes, but neither he nor others would relate what was said.

In recent days, the White House has produced a blitz of pronouncements honouring veterans of the Iraq war, the families and loved ones of the more than 4,000 who died and the nearly 32,000 who were wounded.

The much-diminished American military presence — the fewest troops since the March 2003 US-led invasion — leaves behind a stalemated Iraqi political system that has been unable to form a new government nearly six months after national elections.

Violence has spiked as insurgent bombers and gunmen seek to prove they remain capable of producing chaos.

The remaining US contingent still faces a dangerous task in its mission to train Iraqi forces, to join Iraqi troops in targeted anti-terror operations and to protect Americans who remain in the country.

In the meantime, US worries over Iraq's failure to agree on a new prime minister and government, along with the ceremonial end of the US fighting mission, prompted Mr. Obama to send Vice-President Joe Biden to Baghdad on his sixth trip since January 2009, shortly before he and Mr. Obama took office.

Mr. Biden also will make a new appeal to Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and political archrival and former premier Ayad Allawi, to end the deadlock and seat a new government.

March 7 parliamentary elections left Iraq without a clear winner, and insurgents have exploited the uncertainty to hammer Iraqi security forces in near-daily attacks.

The events in Iraq coincide with a significant shift in Mr. Obama's attention back to foreign policy, even as the economy is stumbling under slowing growth, stubbornly high unemployment and a shattered housing market.

The day after the speech on Iraq, Mr. Obama is hosting a White House dinner for the Israeli and Palestinian leaders before they renew talks at the State Department on Thursday.