Washington – The top U.S. commander in the Middle East warned Congress on Wednesday against setting a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, rejecting the arguments of resurgent Democrats who are pressing President Bush to start pulling out.
Gen. John Abizaid instead urged quick action to strengthen Iraq’s government, predicting that the vicious sectarian violence in Baghdad would surge out of control within four to six months unless immediate steps were taken.
“Our troop posture needs to stay where it is,” and the use of military adviser teams embedded with Iraqi army and police forces needs to be expanded, Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee. It was the first hearing on Iraq policy since last week’s elections gave Democrats control of both houses of Congress starting in January.
The voting last week has been widely interpreted as a public repudiation of Bush’s policies on the war, which has left more than 2,850 U.S. troops dead and more than 20,000 others wounded since the American invasion in March 2003.
“Hope is not a strategy”
Democrats have coalesced around the idea of starting to remove American troops in the next few months, and increasing numbers of Republicans have been openly critical of the war. The day after the election, Bush expressed an openness to considering fresh ideas on Iraq and announced the departure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
“Hope is not a strategy,” Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., a prospective 2008 presidential candidate, said at Wednesday’s hearing. Citing the Bush administration’s repeated claims of progress, Clinton said she saw no evidence that the Iraqi government was ready to make hard decisions, including taking firm action to disarm or neutralize sectarian militias.
“The brutal fact is, it is not happening,” she said.
Even so, Abizaid said it was too soon to give up on the Iraqis or to announce a timetable for starting a U.S. troop withdrawal.
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the panel, said after the hearing that he planned to work with Democrats to produce by January a bipartisan recommendation to the president on a way ahead in Iraq.
Asked what the effect would be on sectarian violence if the U.S. began a troop withdrawal in four to six months, as proposed by some Democrats, Abizaid replied: “I believe it would increase.”
It also would undermine U.S. efforts to increase Iraqis’ confidence that their own government is capable of assuring their security, he suggested.
Pressed by Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., on how much time the U.S. and Iraqi governments have to reduce the violence in Baghdad before it spirals beyond control, Abizaid said: “Four to six months.”
At the same time, Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, the next chairman of the committee, said the administration must tell Iraq that U.S. troops will begin leaving in the next half-year.
“We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves. The only way for Iraqi leaders to squarely face that reality is for President Bush to tell them that the United States will begin a phased redeployment of our forces within four to six months,” Levin said.
Status quo or no?
While the hearing put a spotlight on Democrats’ view that the administration’s Iraq policy is broken, it produced no new proposals for fixing it.
In one of the more contentious exchanges, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also a possible presidential candidate in 2008, challenged Abizaid’s analysis of the Iraqi situation and accused him of sticking to a failed course.
“I’m, of course, disappointed that basically you’re advocating the status quo here today, which I think the American people in the last election said that is not an acceptable condition,” McCain said.
Abizaid said he was not arguing for the status quo.
He said the key change needed now is to place more U.S. troops inside the Iraqi army and police units to train and advise them. Having visited Iraq as recently as this week, Abizaid said, he remained optimistic that the Iraqis are capable of overcoming sharp internal differences and creating conditions for stability.
Abizaid later testified to the House Armed Services Committee, where Democrats delivered angry rebukes of the war and took a more partisan tack.
“It’s hard to find reason for optimism in Iraq today,” said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., who will take over the panel next year.
In a meeting with reporters, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who will be Senate majority leader in the next Congress, said Bush needs to improve Iraqi reconstruction efforts, re-equip U.S. military units whose gear has been damaged in the war and reduce the role of American troops.
“We have to change the mission of the troops in Iraq to counterinsurgency, force protection, and have to do a much better job and have more trainers there,” Reid said.
In a separate session on Capitol Hill, two of the government’s top intelligence officials offered relatively grim assessments of Iraq.
“The perception of unchecked violence is creating an atmosphere of fear and hardening sectarianism which is empowering militias and vigilante groups, hastening middle-class exodus and shaking confidence in government and security forces,” Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in prepared testimony.
Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, told a panel that some blame for Iraq’s trouble lies with neighboring Iran.
“The Iranian hand is stoking violence and supporting even competing Shiite factions” in Iraq, Hayden said.
Asked about his testimony in August that Iraq could fall into civil war and that the sectarian violence was as bad as he had ever seen it, Abizaid said the situation has improved though it is still troubling.
“It’s certainly not as bad as the situation appeared back in August,” Abizaid said, adding that he saw growing confidence among Iraqis in their government.
