Reports add fuel to Iraq debate

Updates on the war are expected to pit Bush and Congress; they may also redefine military and political strategy.
By Doyle McManus
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 2, 2007

WASHINGTON — President Bush and the Democratic-led Congress are heading for another collision over the war in Iraq this month, framed by a flurry of conflicting assessments of military and political progress, and culminating in an impassioned debate over how soon U.S. forces should be withdrawn.

Even before the debate has formally begun, officials on both sides are forecasting its likely course: The general who commands U.S. forces in Iraq will report that the current increase in troops has improved security, and will ask that it continue. Democrats will try again to impose a timetable for a withdrawal but acknowledge they don't have the votes in the Senate. Bush will continue to resist pressure for a major change in strategy but will weigh what aides call "adjustments."

On one level, the battle may merely look like a rerun of the fiery but abortive one that Congress staged only two months ago, when Senate Democrats failed to pass measures that would have forced Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq.

"It's going to be 'Groundhog Day,' " predicted Mark Helmke, an aide to Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), who has criticized Bush's handling of the war.

But there could still be surprises.

Republican members of Congress and some Bush aides have urged the president to begin laying out a new strategy for next year, when the buildup of troops is scheduled to end.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who was widely criticized for cutting off debate on compromise measures in July, now says he is willing to seek a middle ground.

And even if the clash doesn't lead to an immediate change in policy, it may produce -- as a side effect -- an important debate over the future of the war. Administration officials say they recognize that the buildup cannot be sustained next year as the Army and Marine Corps run out of available troops, that political progress in Baghdad has fallen short and that U.S. strategy in Iraq must be redefined.

But the central elements of that strategy remain unresolved: How fast will the post-buildup drawdown be? How far will it go? How will the mission of the remaining forces be defined? What kind of Iraqi political order should the administration seek?

"The essential question is: What should our objective in Iraq be today?" said Dennis Ross, who was a Middle East negotiator under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Clinton. "The president says we're going to prevail without saying clearly what the objective is. There are people on the other side who say, 'Let's pull out,' but they need to spell out what happens next if you do. . . . I don't think this will be the center of the debate in September -- everybody has already staked out their turf -- but it ought to be."

A flurry of reports

This month's showdown was set up in the spring, when Congress agreed to fund Bush's additional 22,000 combat troops on the condition that he report by Sept. 15 on whether the offensive was working.

The first reports have already come in. An official "estimate" from the nation's intelligence agencies released last month found that the buildup had produced "uneven improvements in Iraq's security situation" and little or no political progress -- but warned that a U.S. withdrawal would make things worse. A draft report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that Iraq's government had met only three of the 18 benchmarks for political progress that the administration accepted as goals.

This week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, are to brief the president on their assessments. Next week, they are to deliver them in public before four committees of the House and Senate.

Petraeus and Crocker have frequently said they believe the buildup is making progress. Petraeus "wants to keep as much force on the ground as we possibly can, for as long as we possibly can," said one administration official, who was not authorized to speak on the record and asked not to be identified.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are also scheduled to testify before Congress next week. That could provide a telling contrast. Officials say that Pace and the other members of the Joint Chiefs are worried that continuing the buildup too long would do serious damage to the Army and Marine Corps, and that they favor a significantly smaller force in Iraq next year.

The buildup has increased the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to about 162,000, from about 130,000 last year. Under current plans, the force will gradually shrink to its pre-buildup level of 130,000 by late next summer.

The debate within the military has been over whether the buildup should continue longer than planned and whether troop levels should be held at 130,000 or reduced to about 100,000. Continuing the buildup could require deployments to be extended; they've already lengthened to 15 months, from an initial 12 months.

Congress will also hear from retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, who has drafted a report on the Iraqi security forces that gives relatively good marks to the Iraqi army but recommends that the National Police be rebuilt from scratch.

Petraeus is key

The White House hopes that a bullish assessment from Petraeus, who is widely respected by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, will swing public opinion in favor of the buildup and prevent further erosion in GOP support for the war.

"There are a number of reports coming out," but only one will provide the complete picture, White House spokesman Tony Snow said last week. "The people who are going to be best able to do that are the folks who live and work there every day, and that would be Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker."

Said Republican political consultant David Winston: "Petraeus will define the starting point. If a lot of people actually sit down and watch his testimony, there could be a public reaction -- and Congress will respond if the public reacts one way or the other."

Meanwhile, Bush used speeches before veterans organizations last month to hammer at three major themes he will return to this month: The "surge" has been a military success; the administration has a new "bottom-up" strategy of promoting regional political leaders to compensate for the apparent failure of its "top-down" effort focused on Prime Minister Nouri Maliki; and the consequences of withdrawal would be disastrous.

Some members of Congress -- and some Bush advisors -- have urged the president to add another theme: that the buildup will soon end, the number of U.S. troops in Iraq will decline, and responsibility for security will increasingly shift to newly trained Iraqi forces.

"The surge can't go on forever; we don't have the manpower to do that," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week. "I think it's entirely possible that the president will lay out a strategy that takes us into a different place."

But so far, there has been no sign that Bush intends to soften his stance by talking publicly about a troop drawdown, even one that looks inevitable. Policymakers fear that announcing even a partial withdrawal will convince U.S. adversaries in Iraq and the Middle East that the United States intends to leave entirely -- giving "the wrong signal," one official said.

In effect, the administration faces a dilemma: It would like to reassure Americans that it will soon begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, but reassure its Iraqi allies that it plans to stay.

Democrats, on the other hand, face a dilemma of their own: Their party's most fervent supporters insist that Congress force Bush to withdraw from Iraq within months. But even with a handful of Republican dissidents joining Democrats, Reid is short of the 60 votes he needs under Senate rules to pass such a controversial bill.

In July, the result was a theatrical all-night debate, an angry standoff, and a controversial decision by Reid to cut off debate without allowing several compromise proposals to come to a vote. At the time, Democratic strategists said they expected public opinion to swing dramatically in their direction over the summer and put considerable pressure on Republicans.

But that didn't happen. Last week, in a change of strategy, Reid told the Washington Post that he was willing to help pass a bipartisan compromise. "I don't think we have to think that our way is the only way," he said.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley acknowledged that it might still be impossible to pass a binding timetable for troop withdrawals. "Until you have 60 votes, you can't force a change in policy," he said. "Sen. Reid remains committed to changing the course in Iraq and bringing the troops home, but there are a number of ways to do that legislatively."

One leading possibility, he said, is a proposal by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) that would limit the administration's ability to deploy troops by requiring that the duration of soldiers' leaves be at least as long as their most recent deployment. The measure would not explicitly set a timetable for withdrawal, but it would have a similar effect.

"It is another way to get at the issue," Manley said.

In July, Webb's measure won 56 votes, seven of them from Republicans.

The White House has said Bush would veto a bill that included Webb's language.

In the end, an administration official said, the White House is confident that war critics remain far short of the 67 votes they would need to overcome a veto -- and thus unable to tie Bush's hands between now and the end of his term in January 2009.

"There's no indication that President Bush is going to change course in any significant way," said Ross, the former Middle East negotiator and author of a new book, "Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World."

"But we should be negotiating a timetable with the Iraqis. We should be organizing a national reconciliation conference. We should be dealing with the neighbors more seriously," said Ross.

"We still need to answer the question of how we marry our security strategy to a political strategy. It would be nice if this debate in Congress could do that, but it's not very likely."