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Republicans questioning the Iraq war
"Republican support for the president is draining rapidly," said a Republican strategist. "It is almost unheard of for Republicans to criticize a Republican president at war so soon after he has made an appeal for support." —Financial Times, 1/11/07
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Henry Kissinger, 11/19/06 "I think we have to separate ourselves from the civil war. ... at some early point an international conference should be called that involves neighbours ... I believe America has to be in some dialogue with Iran. BBC
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) 1/11/07 "I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer. Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution."
Sen. John Warner (R-VA) (Ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee) "Young men and women in uniform should not be caught in the crossfire of a civil war started with who should have succeeded Muhammad in 650 A.D."
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) 1/11/07 "Why is it just the United States that is shouldering this? Why is Great Britain withdrawing? Why are we the only ones that are moving forward with this new plan?"
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) 1/11/07 "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam" “dangerously wrongheaded strategy that will drive America deeper into an unwinnable swamp at a great cost.” "To ask our young men and women to sacrifice their lives to be put in the middle of a civil war is wrong. It's, first of all, in my opinion, morally wrong. It's tactically, strategically, militarily wrong."
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) 1/11/07 "I do not believe that a surge in troops is going to solve the fundamental problem we have." "My consultations with both military and Iraqi political leaders confirms that an increase of troops in areas plagued by sectarian violence will not solve the problem of sectarian hatred."
Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) 1/11/07 “We are extending an ineffective tactic to further the status quo. Iraqis must be the ones to settle their own peace.”
Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) 1/11/07 (Foreign Relations Committee) "At this point I am skeptical that a surge in troops alone will bring an end to sectarian violence and the insurgency that is fomenting instability in Iraq." "The generals who have served there do not believe additional troops alone will help."
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) "Based on the trip I took to Iraq last month, I concluded it would be a mistake to increase the overall level of troops in Iraq."
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) "There are too many casualties there. If we have a better course, we ought to adopt it sooner rather than later."
-- New York Daily News, October 23, 2006.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). "We're on the verge of chaos, and the current plan is not working."
-- Associated Press Interview, By DEB RIECHMANN, October 23, 2006.
Sen. John E. Sununu (R-N.H.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said "I would hope that members of the administration are willing to learn from past mistakes . . . and choose a different path that would allow us to meet our objectives."
-- Washington Post, Friday, October 20, 2006.
Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R–ME). "I don't believe that we can continue based on an open-ended, unconditional presence. I don't think there's any question about that, that there will be a change" in the U.S. strategy in Iraq after next month's elections.
-- Washington Post, Friday, October 20, 2006.
Richard N. Haass, a former Bush administration foreign policy official. "More of the same is going to be a policy that very few people are going to support." He added that the administration's current Iraq strategy "has virtually no chance of succeeding" and predicted that "change will come."
-- Washington Post, Friday, October 20, 2006.
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 Hutchison (R)
She says option for distinct regions with shared oil revenues should be put on the table, and more consideration should be given to dividing the country into semi-autonomous regions.
"We have to step back and stop trying to put our American ideas onto this problem and start trying to get an understanding of their views, and strong-held prejudices and biases and ethic preferences," said Hutchison, who serves on the defense appropriations subcommittee.
In subtle criticism of the Bush administration, however, Hutchison acknowledged the need for a "course correction" in Iraq, saying it "should have come earlier than this, perhaps." (Oct. 17, 2006, Houston Chronicle)
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Senator Hagel (R) calls for new Iraq strategy: "Our options are limited."
by NewsNetNebraska, October 16, 2006
"The American people are not going to continue to support, sustain a policy that puts American troops in the middle of a civil war," Hagel said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Hagel said he agreed with Senator John Warner (R) of Virginia who has also spoken out against President Bush's current plan for Iraq. Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has urged consideration of a change of course if the Iraq government fails to restore order over the next two months or three months. Warner said Sunday that even in the week since his trip to Iraq, there has been an "exponential increase in the killings and the savagery that's going on over there."
"You can see some movement forward, but a lot of movement back," Warner said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "We have to rethink all the options."
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GOP pressure growing for Bush to change course in Iraq
Dallas Morning News, Carl P. Leubsdorf, October 11, 2006
Significant pressure is starting even before the balloting – and it's coming from some key Republican allies. Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., recently deplored the Iraqi government's failure to curb spiraling violence.
Even more important was a clear signal from former Secretary of State James Baker, who heads a bipartisan panel assigned to find a way out of the quagmire. more
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Top U.S. general: Iraq strategy under review
CNN, 11:04 p.m. EDT, October 12, 2006
With U.S. casualties in Iraq mounting to levels that may soon make October the deadliest month in two years, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN the overall Iraq strategy is under review.
That includes the linchpin of U.S. exit strategy -- relying on Iraqi forces to take up the fight, Pace said. "Are those assumptions still valid? If they are OK, then how are we doing in getting to where we are supposed to be going?," Pace said. "If we're getting there, how do we reinforce that? If we're not, what should we change?"
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Report: British Army chief calls for Iraq pullout
CNN, 10:40 p.m. EDT, October 12, 2006
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The chief of the British Army has called for a pullout of British troops from Iraq "sometime soon because our presence exacerbates security problems."
Richard Dannett also said: "I think history will show that the planning for what happened after the initial, successful war-fighting phase was poor, probably based more on optimism than sound planning." ... "Whatever consent we may have had in the first place may have turned to tolerance and has largely turned to intolerance."
Sir Richard’s remarks were warmly applauded by military officers across the ranks, many of whom feel the general was voicing publicly what the army has been feeling about the Iraq conflict for some time. (from the Financial Times, Oct. 12.)
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"Baker Looks to Change Course on Iraq"
Former Republican Secretary of State, James Baker
ABC News, Oct. 8, 2006 Interview on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."
Baker is leading the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan group charged with making a "forward-looking assessment of the situation in Iraq." The Iraq Study Group is expected to make its formal assessment after the midterm elections this November. Most important, Baker stated, the report must "take this thing out of politics."
"We're going to try very hard to stay away from the political terms, 'change the course,' 'stay the course', and all that stuff," Baker said.
"Baker Sees Iraq Panel Departing From Bush Strategy"
NY Times, Oct. 8, 2006, David Sanger
“I think the big question is whether we can come up with something before it’s too late,” one member of the commission said late last month, after the group met in Washington. “There’s a real sense that the clock is ticking, that Bush is desperate for a change, but no one in the White House can bring themselves to say so with this election coming. It’s a race between our political calendar and the Iraqis.”
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"America ponders cutting Iraq in three"
London Times, Oct. 8, 2006. Sarah Baxter
AN independent commission set up by Congress with the approval of President George W Bush may recommend carving up Iraq into three highly autonomous regions, according to well informed sources.
The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, is preparing to report after next month’s congressional elections. [It] has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting the Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions of Iraq as the only alternative to what Baker calls “cutting and running” or “staying the course”.
“The Kurds already effectively have their own area,” said a source close to the group. “The federalisation of Iraq is going to take place one way or another. The challenge for the Iraqis is how to work that through.”
The commission is considered to represent a last chance for fresh thinking on Iraq, where mass kidnappings are increasing and even the police are suspected of being responsible for a growing number of atrocities.
Baker, 76, an old Bush family friend who was secretary of state during the first Gulf war in 1991, said last week that he met the president frequently to discuss “policy and personnel”.
His group will not advise “partition”, but is believed to favour a division of the country that will devolve power and security to the regions, leaving a skeletal national government in Baghdad in charge of foreign affairs, border protection and the distribution of oil revenue.
The Iraqi government will be encouraged to hold a constitutional conference paving the way for greater devolution. Iran and Syria will be urged to back a regional settlement that could be brokered at an international conference.
Baker, a leading exponent of shuttle diplomacy, has already met representatives of the Syrian government and is planning to see the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in New York. “My view is you don’t just talk to your friends,” he said last week. “You need to talk to your enemies in order to move forward diplomatically towards peace.”
His group has yet to reach a final conclusion, but there is a growing consensus that America can neither pour more soldiers into Iraq nor suffer mounting casualties without any sign of progress. It is thought to support embedding more high-quality American military advisers in the Iraqi security forces rather than maintaining high troop levels in the country indefinitely.
Frustrated by the failure of a recent so-called “battle of Baghdad” to stem violence in the capital, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, said last week that the unity government of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, had only two months left to get a grip. Rumours abound that the much-admired ambassador could depart by Christmas.
Khalilzad’s warning was reinforced by John Warner, Republican chairman of the Senate armed services committee, on his return from a visit to Baghdad. “In two to three months’ time, if this thing hasn’t come to fruition and this government (is not) able to function, I think it’s a responsibility of our government internally to determine: is there a change of course we should take?” Warner said.
Bush and Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, have resisted the break-up of Iraq on the grounds that it could lead to more violence, but are thought to be reconsidering. “They have finally noticed that the country is being partitioned by civil war and ethnic cleansing is already a daily event,” said Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Gelb is the co-author with Senator Joseph Biden, a leading Democrat, of a plan to divide Iraq. “There was almost no support for our idea until very recently, when all the other ideas being advocated failed,” Gelb said.
In Baghdad last week Rice indicated that time was running out for the Iraqi government to resolve the division of oil wealth and changes to the constitution.
Many Kurds are already hoping for their own national state, while the Shi’ite Islamist leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is pressing for regional autonomy. The Sunnis are opposed to a carve-up of Iraq, which would further deprive them of the national power they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein and could leave them with a barren tranche of the country bereft of oil revenue.
Many Middle East experts are horrified by the difficulty of dividing the nation. “Fifty-three per cent of the population of Iraq live in four cities and three of them are mixed,” said Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, who fears a bloody outcome.
Baghdad is a particular jumble, although ethnic cleansing is already dividing the population along the Tigris River, with Shi’ites to the east and Sunnis to the west of the city.
America may have passed the point where it can determine Iraq’s future, according to Cordesman: “The internal politics of Iraq have taken on a momentum of their own.”
Gelb is under no illusions about the prospects of success. “Everything is a long shot at this point,” he said.
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http://zfacts.com/p/521.html | 01/18/12 07:17 GMT
Modified: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 04:28:09 GMT
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