The next president grills Gen. Petraeus on Iraq war
Written by By Manu Raju | Posted: 04/08/08 08:14 PM [ET]
The Bush administration’s top military and diplomatic officials in Iraq faced the next president of the United States Tuesday in a highly anticipated appearance expected to shape the next phase of the Iraq debate.
The Bush administration’s top military and diplomatic officials in Iraq faced the next president of the United States Tuesday in a highly anticipated appearance expected to shape the next phase of the Iraq debate.
In testimony before two Senate panels, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker found themselves in a rare public forum answering questions from all three presidential candidates — and listening to speeches.
All three made the trip back to Capitol Hill to participate in the hearings, a move that pushed the Iraq war back ahead of the economy, at least for the short run, in the campaign.
As expected, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive GOP nominee, stood solidly behind Petraeus and Crocker’s call that premature withdrawal of troops could reverse incremental security gains on the ground.
Meanwhile, Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), who are battling each other for the Democratic nomination, used the day’s events to drive home the case that the war is not going well. At one point, Clinton rebuked Crocker for suggesting that the Iraqi parliament would have an opportunity to approve an agreement regarding the U.S. commitment there, and the U.S. Congress would not.
For the most part, the administration officials stood by the position that troops should return home based only on the conditions on the ground. They asserted that an agreement under development on the United States’ long-term commitment in Iraq would not need to be approved by the Senate to take force, frustrating Democrats.
“We have our teeth into [al Qaeda’s] jugular and we need to keep it there,” Petraeus said at an afternoon hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, prompting groans from anti-war protesters in a packed audience.
The testimony comes at a sensitive time in the debate. Republicans say that the recent decrease in violence buoys their arguments that troops need to remain in Iraq to finish off al Qaeda. Democrats contend that the security improvements have been marginalized by Iraq’s much-criticized operation in Basra taking on Muqtada al-Sadr, who threatened Tuesday to call off a seven-month cease-fire.
“What has been achieved is substantial, but it is also reversible,” Crocker told the Armed Services Committee.
As the most senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, McCain had the opportunity to tout his position far ahead of his more junior presidential rivals.
“Should the United States instead choose to withdraw from Iraq before adequate security is established, we will exchange for this victory a defeat that is terrible and long-lasting,” said McCain, who advocates keeping troops in Iraq until the country stabilizes. “Al Qaeda in Iraq would proclaim victory and increase its efforts to provoke sectarian tensions, pushing for a full-scale civil war that could descend into genocide and destabilize the Middle East.”
McCain’s opening statement was briefly interrupted when a protester shouted: “There is no military solution!”
“I’ve had this experience previously, Mr. Chairman,” McCain quipped. Within hours of the first hearing, McCain referenced the day’s testimony in a fundraising letter to supporters.
Clinton, who supports a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, spoke three hours into the Armed Services hearing, “fundamentally” disagreeing with the threats made by McCain, his Republican allies and Petraeus.
“I think it could be fair to say that it might well be irresponsible to continue the policy that has not produced the results that have been promised time and time again at such tremendous cost to our national security and to the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States military,” Clinton said. “The lack of political progress over the last six months and the recent conflict in Basra reflect how tenuous the situation in Iraq really is.”
Obama called the Iraq war a “strategic blunder” in which Petraeus and Crocker were “cleaning up the mess.”
“I also think that the surge has reduced violence and provided breathing room, but that breathing room has not been taken the way we would all like it to be taken,” Obama said.
But as the debate raged in the hearing rooms, behind the scenes, Democrats started to pave the way for this year’s Iraq debate.
At a closed luncheon Tuesday, Senate Democrats debated proposals that could add pressure for Bush to change course on the war, including a plan by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) to require that U.S. money for Iraq reconstruction be made as a loan for the country, rather than a grant, and Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-Va.) proposal to improve educational benefits for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Democrats are considering adding the Webb proposal to a fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill, the first vehicle for this year’s Iraq debate that will come to the Senate floor before Memorial Day, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Reid planned to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday in the first in a series of meetings to hash out bicameral Democratic strategy on Iraq.
Reid said debate over the future of the war would also occur when Congress takes up the war supplemental, totaling about $109 billion. Democrats will try to add language to stimulate the economy, including an extension of unemployment benefits and provisions to encourage summer jobs.
Reid also said that Congress would have to review carefully an agreement that will be unveiled this summer stating the United States’ commitment and role in Iraq, saying it cannot be binding on the next president.
At the hearing, Crocker said unlike a treaty, the agreement would not be sent to the Senate for ratification since it will contain no binding requirements.
“We do not intend to provide any binding commitments that would trigger the advise-and-consent process with the Senate,” Crocker said.
That prompted a sharp rebuke from Clinton, who in a measured tone said it was “odd that the Iraqi parliament may have a chance to consider this agreement, [but] that the United States Congress would not.”
When his turn came, McCain asked Petraeus and Crocker specific and brief questions.
“There are numerous threats to security in Iraq and the future of Iraq,” McCain said. “Do you still view Al qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?”
“It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was, say, 15 months ago,” Petraeus said.
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