Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
September 18, 2007
Pg. 10
By Carl Hulse
WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 — Three senators who are considered potential swing votes on war policy said Monday that a weekend visit to Iraq left them discouraged about prospects for political reconciliation there and convinced that the United States must quickly shift more responsibility for security to the Iraqi Army.
“We must take decisive action to force the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people to secure the peace for Iraq,” said Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, as the Senate opened a pivotal debate on the war. “The American military cannot secure the peace for that country.”
Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Maine Republican who accompanied Mr. Salazar and two other Democrats on the trip, said she saw little determination from Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to forge the civil unity that could reduce violence in Iraq.
“There was just no sense of urgency on the part of the prime minister to drive this goal, the overarching goal that will help to cement and to solidify Iraq as a united country,” Ms. Snowe said. “I certainly didn’t get any positive reinforcement that reconciliation was being actively and aggressively and enthusiastically embraced as the way forward.”
Those two lawmakers and Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, said they were impressed with the accomplishments of American forces, but were exploring ways to use the Senate debate to bring a change in war strategy beyond the limited withdrawal endorsed by President Bush last week. They were to meet with other centrists on Tuesday to describe the trip and map strategy.
But prospects for a significant change in Iraq policy still face major obstacles. Even if proposals draw 60 votes to overcome a Senate filibuster, a presidential veto would require that the Senate obtain 67 votes to override it. Mr. Nelson said that he had concluded that some American forces would have to stay in the region, but that the role of American military personnel should immediately begin shifting more to counterterrorism, troop training and force protection.
“A complete withdrawal would leave chaos in that region and I think it would spell problems for us in the future,” said Mr. Nelson, who was among those who went to Iraq as part of a delegation led by Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana.
The comments by the lawmakers illustrated continuing strong reservations in Congress about the course of the war, despite the testimony last week by Gen. David H. Petraeus and President Bush’s plan to begin withdrawing a limited number of troops. How their sentiments will play out legislatively is hard to gauge.
Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Jack Reed of Rhode Island are putting together a proposal that would call for American troops to play a smaller combat role and are trying to win the support of Republicans like Ms. Snowe. But the plan was still in the drafting stages on Monday and lawmakers said they were uncertain if they could back it until they saw the final proposal.
Mr. Salazar has a bipartisan plan of his own based on the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. He said Monday he was contemplating making it tougher, with a requirement that American troops be pulled back from a primary combat role by next spring. He said if the administration continued to resist a strategic shift in Iraq, it might become time for Congress to attach conditions or withhold military money to force a change — an idea he has resisted in the past.
“So long as the American troops are there in the huge numbers that we currently have, we become the security blanket for Iraq,” he said.
Yet even as members of the Senate focused on a shift from combat, Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is the chairman of the House panel that sets Pentagon spending, said he opposed trying to redefine the role of American troops to a counterterrorism capacity, instead preferring withdrawal.
“We tried that in Vietnam, only we did it the opposite way,” he said after a speech at the National Press Club. “We sent in troops to train and so forth in advance, and then we turned around and had to send in more troops. I think that makes it more dangerous for our troops.”
September 18, 2007
Pg. 10
By Carl Hulse
WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 — Three senators who are considered potential swing votes on war policy said Monday that a weekend visit to Iraq left them discouraged about prospects for political reconciliation there and convinced that the United States must quickly shift more responsibility for security to the Iraqi Army.
“We must take decisive action to force the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people to secure the peace for Iraq,” said Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, as the Senate opened a pivotal debate on the war. “The American military cannot secure the peace for that country.”
Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Maine Republican who accompanied Mr. Salazar and two other Democrats on the trip, said she saw little determination from Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to forge the civil unity that could reduce violence in Iraq.
“There was just no sense of urgency on the part of the prime minister to drive this goal, the overarching goal that will help to cement and to solidify Iraq as a united country,” Ms. Snowe said. “I certainly didn’t get any positive reinforcement that reconciliation was being actively and aggressively and enthusiastically embraced as the way forward.”
Those two lawmakers and Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, said they were impressed with the accomplishments of American forces, but were exploring ways to use the Senate debate to bring a change in war strategy beyond the limited withdrawal endorsed by President Bush last week. They were to meet with other centrists on Tuesday to describe the trip and map strategy.
But prospects for a significant change in Iraq policy still face major obstacles. Even if proposals draw 60 votes to overcome a Senate filibuster, a presidential veto would require that the Senate obtain 67 votes to override it. Mr. Nelson said that he had concluded that some American forces would have to stay in the region, but that the role of American military personnel should immediately begin shifting more to counterterrorism, troop training and force protection.
“A complete withdrawal would leave chaos in that region and I think it would spell problems for us in the future,” said Mr. Nelson, who was among those who went to Iraq as part of a delegation led by Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana.
The comments by the lawmakers illustrated continuing strong reservations in Congress about the course of the war, despite the testimony last week by Gen. David H. Petraeus and President Bush’s plan to begin withdrawing a limited number of troops. How their sentiments will play out legislatively is hard to gauge.
Democratic Senators Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Jack Reed of Rhode Island are putting together a proposal that would call for American troops to play a smaller combat role and are trying to win the support of Republicans like Ms. Snowe. But the plan was still in the drafting stages on Monday and lawmakers said they were uncertain if they could back it until they saw the final proposal.
Mr. Salazar has a bipartisan plan of his own based on the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. He said Monday he was contemplating making it tougher, with a requirement that American troops be pulled back from a primary combat role by next spring. He said if the administration continued to resist a strategic shift in Iraq, it might become time for Congress to attach conditions or withhold military money to force a change — an idea he has resisted in the past.
“So long as the American troops are there in the huge numbers that we currently have, we become the security blanket for Iraq,” he said.
Yet even as members of the Senate focused on a shift from combat, Representative John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is the chairman of the House panel that sets Pentagon spending, said he opposed trying to redefine the role of American troops to a counterterrorism capacity, instead preferring withdrawal.
“We tried that in Vietnam, only we did it the opposite way,” he said after a speech at the National Press Club. “We sent in troops to train and so forth in advance, and then we turned around and had to send in more troops. I think that makes it more dangerous for our troops.”