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Panel to Weigh Overture by US to Iran and Syria    [

    Lawmakers Lose Patience With Iraq Government
    By Ben Feller
    The Associated Press

    Monday 27 November 2006

    Washington - Congressional leaders displayed eroding patience in the Iraqi government on Sunday, adding pressure on President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to find a faster path to peace when they meet this week.

    "It is not too late. The United States can still extricate itself honorably from an impending disaster in Iraq," Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a potential presidential contender in 2008, said in urging for a planned withdrawal of U.S. troops.

    "If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder - one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead," Hagel wrote in Sunday's Washington Post.

    As the U.S. involvement in Iraq surpassed the length of America's participation in World War II, lawmakers have dwindling confidence in the U.S.-supported Iraqi government. It was the deadliest week of sectarian fighting in Baghdad since the war began in March 2003.

    "I think what we've got to do is go around the Maliki government in certain situations," said Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, another possible presidential candidate. "Let's work with other groups, and let's get regional buy-in into this."

    The Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan 10-member commission led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, is working on a set of strategies for Iraq. The New York Times reported Sunday that the commission's draft report recommends aggressive regional diplomacy, including talks with Iran and Syria.

    Anonymous officials who had seen the draft report told the Times it does not specify any timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, although the commissioners are expected to debate the feasibility of such timetables.

    Bush, after a NATO summit in Europe, plans to meet with al-Maliki on Wednesday and Thursday in Jordan. That summit, coupled with Vice President Dick Cheney's trip to Saudi Arabia on Saturday, is evidence of the administration's stepped-up effort to bring stability to the region.

    The host of the meeting, Jordan's King Abdullah, said Sunday the problems in the Middle East go beyond the war in Iraq. He said much of the region soon could become engulfed in violence unless the central issues are addressed quickly.

    The king said he was hopeful the leaders will find a way to reduce the level of violence.

    "We hope there will be something dramatic. The challenges, obviously, in front of both of them are immense," he said.

    Iraq's leaders promised Sunday to track down those responsible for the recent attacks, and al-Maliki urged his national unity government of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to curb the violence by stopping their public disputes.

    The Iraqi prime minister is under pressure from Shiite politicians loyal to the radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr who have threatened to boycott parliament and the Cabinet if al-Maliki meets with Bush.

    "This is all political posturing. It's all red herring. It's an anti-threat. This is a very stable government," responded Iraq's national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie. He said he had no doubt the prime minister would meet with Bush in Jordan.

    As for Bush, some of the toughest criticism is coming from within his own party.

    "We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam," said Hagel, a combat veteran of that war. "Honorable intentions are not policies and plans."

    Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, called Iraq the worst U.S. foreign policy decision since Vietnam. He said Democrats do not have a quick answer and any solution must be bipartisan.

    "It is time to tell the Iraqis that unless they're willing to disband the militias and the death squads, unless they're willing to stand up and govern their country in a responsible fashion, America is not going to stay there indefinitely," Durbin said.

    That theme - pressuring al-Maliki and his government - seemed to unify Republicans and Democrats.

    "I think we're going to have to be very aggressive and specific with him," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., the incoming No. 2 GOP leader. "And if he doesn't show real leadership, doesn't try to bring the situation under control - if, in fact, he becomes a part of the problem - we're going to have to make some tough decisions."

    Yet Rep. Duncan Hunter, the outgoing chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the United States will win the conflict in the long run by supporting a free government in Iraq. Before any decisions are made on reducing U.S. troop levels, he said, more U.S.-trained Iraqi battalions should be moved into the heavy-fighting areas of Baghdad.

    "Saddle those guys up," Hunter said. "Move them into the fight."

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    Durbin, Brownback and King Abdullah were on "This Week" on ABC. Lott appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and Hunter on "Meet the Press" on NBC. Al-Rubaie was on CNN's "Late Edition."

 

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    Panel to Weigh Overture by US to Iran and Syria
    By David E. Sanger
    The New York Times

    Monday 27 November 2006

    Washington - A draft report on strategies for Iraq, which will be debated here by a bipartisan commission beginning Monday, urges an aggressive regional diplomatic initiative that includes direct talks with Iran and Syria but sets no timetables for a military withdrawal, according to officials who have seen all or parts of the document.

    While the diplomatic strategy appears likely to be accepted, with some amendments, by the 10-member Iraq Study Group, members of the commission and outsiders involved in its work said they expected a potentially divisive debate about timetables for beginning an American withdrawal.

    In interviews, several officials said announcing a major withdrawal was the only way to persuade the government of Iraq's prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to focus on creating an effective Iraqi military force.

    Several commission members, including some Democrats, are discussing proposals that call for a declaration that within a specified period of time, perhaps as short as a year, a significant number of American troops should be withdrawn, regardless of whether the Iraqi government's forces are declared ready to defend the country.

    Among the ideas are embedding far more American training teams into Iraqi military units in a last-ditch improvement effort. While numbers are still approximate, phased withdrawal of combat troops over the next year would leave 70,000 to 80,000 American troops in the country, compared with about 150,000 now.

    "It's not at all clear that we can reach consensus on the military questions," one member of the commission said late last week.

    The draft report, according to those who have seen it, seems to link American withdrawal to the performance of the Iraqi military, as President Bush has done. But details of the performance benchmarks, which were described as not specific, could not be obtained, and it is this section of the report that is most likely to be revised.

    While the commission is scheduled to meet here for two days this week, officials say the session may be extended if members have trouble reaching consensus.

    Meanwhile, Mr. Bush will be visiting Latvia and Estonia, then will head to Amman, Jordan, on Wednesday for two days of meetings with Mr. Maliki and King Abdullah II of Jordan.

    The recommendations of the commission, an independent advisory group created at the suggestion of several members of Congress, are expected to carry unusual weight because its members, drawn from both political parties, have deep experience in foreign policy. They include its co-chairmen, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a Republican, and Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman.

    Though the commission has met many times, interviewing administration officials, policy experts, military officers and others, the meeting here on Monday will be the first time that members have gathered to hash out the most difficult issues.

    The basis for their discussion will be a draft report that Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton directed the commission staff to prepare, based on informal conversations among the members.

    The group is expected to present its final report to President Bush and to Congress in December.

    The commission's co-chairmen have urged members and staff not to discuss their deliberations. As a result, those who were willing to talk about the commission's work and the draft reports did so on the condition of anonymity.

    President Bush is not bound by the commission's recommendations, and during a trip to Southeast Asia that ended just before Thanksgiving, he made it clear that he would also give considerable weight to studies under way by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his own National Security Council.

    Last Monday in Bogor, Indonesia, he said he planned to make no decisions on troop increases or decreases "until I hear from a variety of sources, including our own United States military."

    But privately, administration officials seem deeply concerned about the weight of the findings of the Baker-Hamilton commission.

    "I think there is fear that anything they say will seem like they are etched in stone tablets," said a senior American diplomat. "It's going to be hard for the president to argue that a group this distinguished, and this bipartisan, has got it wrong."

    Mr. Bush's nominee for secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, resigned from the commission after his nomination this month, and was replaced by Lawrence S. Eagleburger, another Republican who once was secretary of state. Mr. Gates has said little about his thoughts on military strategy, other than to express amazement when he visited Iraq with the study group over Labor Day that the administration had let the situation spin so far out of control.

    Mr. Bush spent 90 minutes with commission members in a closed session at the White House two weeks ago "essentially arguing why we should embrace what amounts to a 'stay the course' strategy," said one commission official who was present.

    Officials said that the draft of the section on diplomatic strategy, which was heavily influenced by Mr. Baker, seemed to reflect his public criticism of the administration for its unwillingness to talk with nations like Iran and Syria.

    But senior administration officials, including Stephen J. Hadley, the president's national security adviser, have expressed skepticism that either of those nations would go along, especially while Iran is locked in a confrontation with the United States over its nuclear program. "Talking isn't a strategy," he said in an interview in October.

    "The issue is how can we condition the environment so that Iran and Syria will make a 180-degree turn, so that rather than undermining the Iraqi government, they will support it."

    Administration officials appear to be taking steps that will enable them to declare that they are already implementing parts of the Baker-Hamilton report, even before its release. On Saturday, Vice President Dick Cheney flew to Saudi Arabia for a meeting with King Abdullah, whom he has known for 17 years.

    An official who was briefed on the vice president's trip, and who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about it with reporters, said discussion at the two-hour meeting had covered all the crises in the Middle East.

    "The best way to describe it is as a consultation, on a number of issues," that official said. "But because Iraq is such a big issue, it obviously took up a major part of the conversation."

    The official said Mr. Cheney had not gone to Riyadh to enlist Saudi help for any specific proposals on Iraq.

    During an interview on the ABC News program "This Week" on Sunday, King Abdullah said that his agenda with the president extended beyond Iraq, and that his top concern in the region was the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians - which he called the "core issue" in the Middle East - along with tensions in Lebanon.

    But, he said, he was hoping that Mr. Bush's meeting with Mr. Maliki would bring about "something dramatic" to stop the violence in Iraq.

    Last week, administration officials played down expectations for the meeting with Mr. Maliki. But they are clearly hoping that Mr. Maliki will show a greater willingness to crack down on the Shiite militias, including the militia run by the powerful cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

    While it is unclear what private messages Mr. Bush was preparing for Mr. Maliki, the public message will be an eagerness to turn more operational control over to the Iraqis, as soon as they are prepared to handle it.

    "Any disarming of the militias - in large part because there is such a political element to that - is most effectively carried out by the Iraqi security forces," said Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor.

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    Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting.