Iraq report’s proposals split Congress

Iraq report’s proposals split Congress
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: December 7 2006 19:26 | Last updated: December 7 2006 21:23



Key lawmakers were divided over Iraq policy on Thursday following the publication of the Iraq Study Group report, with Senator John McCain calling its recommendations a recipe for failure.

While senators on the influential armed services committee welcomed the efforts of James Baker, the former secretary of state, and Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic congressman, they showed that consensus over Iraq may be difficult to achieve.

Mr McCain, the Republican frontrunner for the 2008 presidential election, who has called on Mr Bush to increase troop levels in Iraq, expressed strong reser- vations about the ISG’s proposal to start reducing combat troops.

The study group report recommended that the Pentagon shift its mission to training Iraqi security forces in a manner that would allow the US to withdraw most combat forces from Iraq by early 2008. Mr Baker and Mr Hamilton told the Senate armed services committee that the 10 commissioners on the ISG, which was created by Congress, had been advised by most experts that the US did not have the military resources to sustain a large increase in troops in Iraq.

“I want to tell you something that I know that you know. There’s only one thing worse than an overstressed army and marine corps, and that’s a defeated army and marine corps,” said Mr McCain, who becomes the top Republican on the committee next month. “We saw that in 1973. And I believe that this is a recipe that will lead to, sooner or later, our defeat in Iraq.”

Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who will become committee chairman next month, said the report underscored the message he has been sending to Mr Bush to tell the Iraqi government the US would start to withdraw troops within six months. Mr Hamilton told the committee the ISG thought increasing troops, other than a short-term surge to improve security in Baghdad, would be counterproductive.

“One of the things we kept asking ourselves repeatedly through our discussions was what kind of leverage you could assert on the Iraqi government,” said Mr Hamilton. “Well, we believe that the troop level question is one point of leverage. And we have to say to those folks that we’re just not going to be there indefinitely. There are limits to the American patience. There are limits to American resources.”

Mr Hamilton and Mr Baker appeared to dismiss a key tenet of Mr Bush’s initial justification for the war in Iraq, that the country was the central front in the “war on terror”. Mr Baker said: “It may not have been when we first went in but it certainly is now.”

Mr Hamilton was even stronger, saying: “I would strike the word ‘the’ and use ‘a’ – it is a central front. Look, al-Qaeda today is an important part of the violence, but not as important as sectarian violence. It is a central front in the war on terror. But to make it the central front overstates it.”

Robert Gates, the incoming sec retary of defence, told the same committee this week that he believed Iraq was only one of the central fronts in the “war on terror”. In contrast to Mr Levin, who welcomed the report as an indictment of Bush administration policy, Joe Lieberman, the hawkish Democrat senator from Connecticut, said the ISG proposals broadly mirrored current administration proposals.

While some senators agreed with the ISG recommendation to create a new diplomatic initiative in the Middle East, others, including Mr McCain and Susan Collins, the Maine Republican, questioned whether talking to Iran and Syria could work.

Hillary Clinton, the New York senator who is the perceived Demo­crat frontrunner for the 2008 presidential race, said: “We’ve now heard from the Iraq Study Group but we need the White House to become the Iraq results group.”