CRAWFORD, Texas — President George W. Bush went to his ranch to rethink US’s involvement in Iraq as his spokesman hailed a Baghdad court’s decision upholding the death sentence for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.“Today marks an important milestone in the Iraqi people’s efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law,” deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel told reporters yesterday aboard Air Force One to Texas, where Bush was to meet this week with his national security team.

“Saddam Hussein has received due process and legal rights that he denied the Iraqi people for so long, so this is an important day for the Iraqi people,” Stanzel said.

At the Pentagon, officials said Secretary Robert Gates is not likely to offer a single solution but, rather, a broad set of recommendations for changing the course in Iraq. A senior Defence Department official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because Gates’ advice to Bush is secret, said the recommendations “would involve many aspects of how we can do things differently.”

Bush, saddled with low approval ratings for his handling of Iraq, will host a National Security Council meeting tomorrow at the ranch, but is not expected to make any final decision on what he says will be a new way forward in Iraq.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley will attend the meeting.

Stanzel said there could be other National Security Council meetings before the president makes up his mind and delivers a speech to announce his decisions. The speech is expected before the State of the Union address on January 23.

Bush is under mounting pressure to change US involvement in Iraq where violence continued to escalate this month.

Yesterday, the US military reported that seven more American soldiers had died, pushing the US military death toll for the month to 90.

With five days remaining in the month, December is already the second deadliest month for the US military this year, behind the 105 soldiers killed in October.

The latest deaths also brought the number of US military members killed since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 — five more than the number killed in the September 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Stanzel said Bush continues to question advisers and think through the consequences of various US actions.

“Our forces, coalition forces in Iraq are continuing to take the fight to the enemy, and the president will announce a new way forward when he’s comfortable” with his decision, he said.