Ex-Defense Official Assails Colleagues Over Run-Up to War

By Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 9, 2008; A01

In the first insider account of Pentagon decision-making on Iraq, one of the key architects of the war blasts former secretary of state Colin Powell, the CIA, retired Gen. Tommy R. Franks and former Iraq occupation chief L. Paul Bremer for mishandling the run-up to the invasion and the subsequent occupation of the country.

Douglas J. Feith, in a massive score-settling work, portrays an intelligence community and a State Department that repeatedly undermined plans he developed as undersecretary of defense for policy and conspired to undercut President Bush's policies.

Among the disclosures made by Feith in "War and Decision," scheduled for release next month by HarperCollins, is Bush's declaration, at a Dec. 18, 2002, National Security Council meeting, that "war is inevitable." The statement came weeks before U.N. weapons inspectors reported their initial findings on Iraq and months before Bush delivered an ultimatum to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Feith, who says he took notes at the meeting, registered it as a "momentous comment."

Although he acknowledges "serious errors" in intelligence, policy and operational plans surrounding the invasion, Feith blames them on others outside the Pentagon and notes that "even the best planning" cannot avoid all problems in wartime. While he says the decision to invade was correct, he judges that the task of creating a viable and stable Iraqi government was poorly executed and remains "grimly incomplete."

Powell, Feith argues, allowed himself to be publicly portrayed as a dove, but while Powell "downplayed" the degree and urgency of Iraq's threat, he never expressed opposition to the invasion. Bremer, meanwhile, is said to have done more harm than good in Iraq. Feith also accuses Franks of being uninterested in postwar planning, and writes that Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser during most of Feith's time in office, failed in her primary task of coordinating policy on the war.

He describes Bush as having wrestled seriously with difficult problems but as being ill-served by subordinates including Powell and Rice. Feith depicts former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld with almost complete admiration, questioning only his rough handling of subordinates.

Feith left the administration in mid-2005 and is now on the Georgetown University faculty. He was the subject of an investigation early last year by the Pentagon's inspector general for his office's secret prewar intelligence assessments outlining strong ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda. His reports, deemed "inconsistent" with those of the intelligence community, were judged "inappropriate" but not illegal.

In his book, Feith defends the intelligence activities on grounds that the CIA was "politicizing" intelligence by ignoring evidence in its own reports of ties between Hussein and international terrorists.

A copy of the nearly 900-page manuscript -- midway through the editing process -- was obtained by The Washington Post. Reached at his home yesterday evening, Feith declined to discuss its contents.

Despite its bulk, the book does not address some of the basic facts of the war, such as the widespread skepticism inside the top of the U.S. military about invading Iraq, with some generals arguing that doing so would distract attention from the war against global terrorists. Nor does Feith touch on the assertion of his fellow war architect, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, that Iraq would be able to pay for its reconstruction with oil revenue.

Feith says surprisingly little new about the conduct of the war on the ground, instead focusing on the policy battles in Washington and asserting that most accounts thus far have been written from the point of view of the State Department and the CIA. He attacks those criticisms as "fear-mongering" that serves the interests of certain officials and journalists.

Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, are described as repeatedly working behind the scenes to undercut sound proposals by Feith and other Pentagon officials and to undermine decisions Bush had made. Feith criticizes Powell's failure to persuade France and Germany to support U.S. war policy at the United Nations, and to gain Turkey's approval for U.S. troop movements in its territory, as failures of effort and commitment. Feith also asks what would have happened if Powell had argued with Bush against overthrowing Hussein. Powell might have persuaded the president, Feith writes, or, if not, could have resigned.

Feith's disdain for Armitage, with whom he sparred at NSC deputies meetings, is palpable. Powell's deputy, he says, "reflexively opposed any idea originating at the Pentagon."

In an introduction to the manuscript, Feith writes that he has tried to avoid polemic and seeks only to contribute to the historical record. He argues, as have other Iraq hawks such as Richard Perle -- a former Reagan administration Pentagon official and outside Rumsfeld adviser -- that the administration's careful approach to Iraq, including a swift transition to Iraqi control, was prevented from succeeding by ill-informed or disloyal subordinates.

The idea to which Feith appears most attached, and to which he repeatedly returns in the book, is the formation of an Iraqi Interim Authority. Feith's office drew up a plan for the body -- to be made up of U.S.-appointed Iraqis who would share some decision-making with U.S. occupation forces -- in the months before the invasion. But while he says that Bush approved it, he charges that Bremer refused to implement it.

The key mistake that the United States made in Iraq, Feith asserts, was "the mishandling of the political transition." The good that Bremer did, he concludes, "was outweighed by the harm caused by the fact of occupation."

In an interview yesterday, Bremer disputed Feith's narrative, saying he believes that Bush gave up on the idea of a quick transition shortly after Baghdad fell and widespread looting broke out in April 2003.

"By the time I sat down with the president on May 3, it was clear that he wasn't thinking about a short occupation," Bremer said. After consulting his records, Bremer also said that at a White House meeting on May 8, Vice President Cheney said, "We are not yet at the point where people we want to emerge can yet emerge." He said that Feith omits that comment. On May 22, he added, the president wrote to him, saying that he knew "our work will take time."

Others have criticized Feith's plan as relying too heavily on Iraqi exile politicians, including Ahmed Chalabi. Feith says that he considered Chalabi one of the most astute and democratically minded Iraqis but that he had no special brief for him. Instead, he charges that the State Department, the CIA and the military's Central Command were pathologically opposed to the exiles and to Chalabi in particular.

Feith continually denounces the CIA, accusing it of producing poor intelligence, intruding on the formulation of policy, and then using leaks to the media to defend itself and attack its bureaucratic opponents. Most notably, he charges that intelligence officials ignored and refused to investigate possible links between al-Qaeda and Hussein's government.

He reports, as others have, that Franks, who commanded the U.S. invasion force, treated him disrespectfully, sometimes rolling his eyes when Feith asked a question. But he indicates that Franks's disregard grew partly out of the general's lack of interest in planning for the postwar period. When Feith tried to talk to him about one aspect of that, Franks walked around the table, leaned over and said, "Doug, I don't have time for this [expletive]." He concludes that Franks failed in part because of advice he received from his advisers at the CIA and the State Department.

In contrast with the reputation of Gen. Richard B. Myers, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for pliability, Feith reports that Myers grew irate at what he saw as administration attempts to get around the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners following the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Myers, he writes, threatened to bypass Rumsfeld and take his concerns directly to Bush, but calmed down after being told that the administration would distinguish between legitimate prisoners of war and al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees.

In summarizing his view of what went wrong in Iraq, Feith writes that it was a mistake for the administration to rely so heavily on intelligence reports of Hussein's alleged stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons and a nuclear weapons program, not only because they turned out to be wrong but also because secret information was not necessary to understand the threat Hussein posed.

Hussein's history of aggression and disregard of U.N. resolutions, his past use of weapons of mass destruction and the fact that he was "a bloodthirsty megalomaniac" were enough, Feith maintains.

He blames both the CIA and Powell, who outlined the weapons case in a February 2003 speech at the United Nations, for overemphasizing the threat. But Feith appears to ignore the crucial role that statements from Cheney and Rice, about the imminence of "mushroom clouds" emanating from Iraqi nuclear weapons, played in the case the administration made for war.

CIA Said Instability Seemed 'Irreversible'

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 12, 2007; A01

Early on the morning of Nov. 13, 2006, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gathered around a dark wooden conference table in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House.

For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give what one panel member called a "Churchillian" vision of "victory" in Iraq and defend the country's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. "A constitutional order is emerging," he said.

Later that morning, around the same conference table, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden painted a starkly different picture for members of the study group. Hayden said "the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible," adding that he could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around," according to written records of his briefing and the recollections of six participants.

"The government is unable to govern," Hayden concluded. "We have spent a lot of energy and treasure creating a government that is balanced, and it cannot function."

Later in the interview, he qualified the statement somewhat: "A government that can govern, sustain and defend itself is not achievable," he said, "in the short term."

Hayden's bleak assessment, which came just a week after Republicans had lost control of Congress and Bush had dismissed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was a pivotal moment in the study group's intensive examination of the Iraq war, and it helped shape its conclusion in its final report that the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating."

In the eight months since the interview, neither Hayden nor any other high-ranking administration official has publicly described the Iraqi government in the uniformly negative terms that the CIA director used in his closed-door briefing.

Among the 79 specific recommendations the Iraq Study Group made to Bush was withdrawing support for the Maliki government unless it showed "substantial progress" on security and national reconciliation. And it recommended changing the primary mission of U.S. forces from combat to training Iraqis so that combat units could be withdrawn by early 2008.

In effect, the report from the bipartisan group -- co-chaired by former secretary of state James A. Baker III, a Republican, and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) -- was an urgent message from the old Washington establishment to the Bush administration to change the direction of its Iraq policy. But Bush did not initially embrace any of the key recommendations, although bipartisan groups in the House and Senate have recently introduced legislation that would make them official U.S. policy.

Instead, the president in January announced that he was sending more troops to Iraq as part of a "surge," which he said would lead to the victory that had so far eluded U.S. forces.

Both Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, have repeatedly said that there is no military solution to Iraq and that the sectarian strife and the insurgency can be resolved only by the Iraqi government.

Hayden's description of Iraq's dysfunctional government provides some insight into the intelligence community's analysis of Maliki and the situation on the ground. Five days before his testimony, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley had written a memo to Bush raising doubts about Maliki's ability to curb violence in Iraq, but his assessment was not as bleak as Hayden's.

Bush's own optimistic statement to members of the study group did not reflect the viewpoint of his CIA director. But a statement from another administration official interviewed by the panel the same day -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- took it into account.

Asked by former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a member of the study group, if she was aware of the CIA's grim evaluation of Iraq, Rice replied, "We are aware of the dark assessment," but quickly added: "It is not without hope."

A spokesman for the CIA, Mark Mansfield, disputed this account of Hayden's testimony to members of the study group. "That is not an accurate reflection of what Director Hayden said at that meeting, nor does it reflect his view, then or now," Mansfield said.

A senior intelligence official familiar with Hayden's session with the Iraq Study Group said that Hayden told the panel his assessment was "somber" and acknowledged that Hayden had used the term "irreversible." But the official insisted that Hayden instead said, "The current situation, with regard to governance in Iraq, was probably irreversible in the short term, because of the world views of many of the [Iraqi] government leaders, which were shaped by a sectarian filter and a government that was organized for its ethnic and religious balance rather than competence or capacity."

But another senior intelligence official confirmed the thrust and detail of Hayden's assessment, saying that the intelligence out of Iraq this month shows that the ability of the Maliki government to execute decisions and govern Iraq remains "awful."

Hayden, 62, a four-star Air Force general and career intelligence officer, has a reputation as a candid briefer. Since 2003, the CIA, which has more than 500 personnel in Iraq to assist in providing intelligence and analysis, has offered the most pessimistic view of any intelligence agency of both the Iraqi government's performance and the situation on the ground there.

Testifying publicly before the Senate Armed Services Committee two days after meeting with the study group, Hayden was more cautious in his conclusions. He said that there were serious problems in Iraq but that the government was "functioning."

Former defense secretary William J. Perry, one of the five Democrats on the Iraq Study Group, confirmed that Hayden told them the Iraqi government seemed beyond repair.

"That was what we'd been hearing everywhere," Perry said. "He just said it a little more clearly and more explicitly than other people."

O'Connor, a Republican, also confirmed Hayden's assessment. She said she did not agree with his conclusion that it was irreversible, but she said she was pessimistic.

"It is a dire situation," she said. "I don't think it has gotten any better. It just breaks your heart. . . . Iraqi people are dying, American soldiers are dying. So far it does not seem we have achieved any kind of security there."

Arriving at the White House on the morning of Nov. 13, members of the study group spent the day interviewing almost every key figure involved in Iraq policy. In addition to Hayden, Bush and Rice, they also questioned Rumsfeld; Gen. Peter Pace, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Zalmay Khalilzad, then U.S. ambassador to Iraq; and, by videoconference from Baghdad, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Bush was joined in the interview by Vice President Cheney, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and Hadley, but they did not speak. "We thought with that whole group there, we were going to get briefings, we were going to get discussions," said Perry. "Instead the president held forth on his views on how important the war was, and how it was tough."

In his meeting with members of the study group, Hayden described a situation in which the Iraqi government either would not or could not control the violence consuming the country and questioned whether it made sense to strengthen its security forces. He depicted the United States as facing mainly bad choices in the future.

"Our leaving Iraq would make the situation worse," Hayden said. "Our staying in Iraq may not make it better. Our current approach without modification will not make it better."

According to the written record and others in the room, Hayden at one point likened the situation in Iraq to a marathon. He said there comes a point in each race when the runner knows he can complete the challenge. But Hayden said he could see no such point in Iraq's future.

"The levers of power are not connected to anything," he said, adding: "We have placed all of our energies in creating the center, and the center cannot accomplish anything."

Numerous U.S. generals already had told the study group that success in Iraq could not come without national reconciliation between the Sunnis and Shiites. Hayden agreed, saying: "The Iraqi identity is muted. The Sunni or Shia identity is foremost."

But he clearly saw no end to sectarian killings. "Given the level of uncontrolled violence," Hayden said, "the most we can do is to contain its excesses and preserve the possibility of reconciliation in the future."

He compared the Iraq situation to the prolonged warfare in the Balkans. "In Bosnia, the parties fought themselves to exhaustion," Hayden said, suggesting that the same scenario could play out in Iraq. "They might just have to fight this out to exhaustion."

Hayden catalogued what he saw as the main sources of violence in this order: the insurgency, sectarian strife, criminality, general anarchy and, lastly, al-Qaeda. Though Hayden had listed al-Qaeda as the fifth most pressing threat in Iraq, Bush regularly lists al-Qaeda first.

Members of the study group said Hayden's stark assessment of the Iraqi government dovetailed with what they had heard in September during their visit to Iraq. There, they met with a senior CIA official who held an equally unenthusiastic view. "Maliki was nobody's pick," the CIA official had said, according to written notes from that meeting. "His name came up late. He has no real power base in the country or in parliament. We need not expect much from him."

Given the constant threats and persistent violence, the official had said, it was remarkable that Iraqi government employees showed up for work.

"We continue to be amazed that the Iraqis accept such high levels of violence," he told the study group. "Maliki thinks two car bombs a day, 100 dead a day, is okay. It's sustainable and his government is survivable."

But the government itself was responsible for some of that violence, the CIA official said. "The Ministry of Interior is uniformed death squads, overseers of jails and torture facilities," he said. "Their funds are constantly misappropriated."

In his testimony, Hayden said that the United States had fundamental disagreements with Maliki's Shiite-dominated government on some of the most basic issues facing Iraq.

"We and the Iraqi government do not agree on who the enemy is," Hayden said, according to the written record. "For all the senior leaders of the Iraqi government, Baathists are the source of evil. There is a Baathist behind every bush."

Several participants in the interview described Hayden as dismayed by the startling level of violence in the country but skeptical of the ability of Iraqi forces -- either the military or the police -- to do anything about it.

"It's a legitimate question whether strengthening the Iraqi security forces helps or hurts when they are viewed as a predatory element," he said. "Strengthening Iraqi security forces is not unalloyed good. Without qualification, this judgment applies to the police."

In one bit of qualified good news, he said that the training of the Iraqi army had produced better results than that of the police. "The army is uneven," he said, adding: "Uneven, in this case, is good."

Hayden's frustration with Maliki provides a context to the administration's continuing efforts to pressure the Iraqi leader into finding a political settlement between Sunni and Shiite factions in Iraq. During one week last month, three senior administration officials visited Baghdad to try to speed up the political process.

In her testimony Nov. 13, Rice recounted her discussions with Maliki in which she bluntly told him the importance of making progress on national unity and reconciliation. Rice said she had told the prime minister, "Pretty soon, you'll all be swinging from lampposts if you don't hang together."

Brady Dennis and Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.

Administration Shaving Yardstick for Iraq Gains

Goals Unmet; Smaller Strides to Be Promoted

By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 8, 2007; A01

The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals or timelines President Bush set for it in January when he announced a major shift in U.S. policy, according to senior administration officials closely involved in the matter. As they prepare an interim report due next week, officials are marshaling alternative evidence of progress to persuade Congress to continue supporting the war.

In a preview of the assessment it must deliver to Congress in September, the administration will report that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province are turning against the group al-Qaeda in Iraq in growing numbers; that sectarian killings were down in June; and that Iraqi political leaders managed last month to agree on a unified response to the bombing of a major religious shrine, officials said.

Those achievements are markedly different from the benchmarks Bush set when he announced his decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq. More troops, Bush said, would enable the Iraqis to proceed with provincial elections this year and pass a raft of power-sharing legislation. In addition, he said, the government of President Nouri al-Maliki planned to "take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November."

Congress expanded on Bush's benchmarks, writing 18 goals into law as part of the war-funding measure it passed in the spring.

In addition to the elections, legislation and security measures Bush outlined in January, Congress added demands that the Iraqi government complete a revision of its constitution and pass a law on de-Baathification and additional laws on militia disarmament, regional boundaries and other issues.

Lawmakers asked for an interim report in July and set a Sept. 15 deadline for a comprehensive assessment by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador. Now, as U.S. combat deaths have escalated, violence has spread far beyond Baghdad, and sectarian political divides have deepened, the administration must persuade lawmakers to use more flexible, less ambitious standards.

But anything short of progress on the original benchmarks is unlikely to appease the growing ranks of disaffected Republican lawmakers who are urging Bush to develop a new strategy. Although Republicans held the line this year against Democratic efforts to set a timeline for withdrawing troops, several influential GOP senators have broken with Bush in recent days, charging that his plan is failing and calling for troop redeployments starting as early as the spring.

According to several senior officials who agreed to discuss the situation in Iraq only on the condition of anonymity, the political goals that seemed achievable earlier this year remain hostage to the security situation. If the extreme violence were to decline, Iraq's political paralysis might eventually subside. "If they are arguing, accusing, gridlocking," one official said, "none of that would mean the country is falling apart if it was against the backdrop of a stabilizing security situation."

From a military perspective, however, the political stalemate is hampering security. "The security progress we're making is real," said a senior military intelligence official in Baghdad. "But it's only in part of the country, and there's not enough political progress to get us over the line in September."

In their September report, sources said, Petraeus and Crocker intend to emphasize how security and politics are intertwined, and how progress in either will be incremental. In that context, the administration will offer new measures of progress to justify continuing the war effort.

"There are things going on that we never could have foreseen," said one official, who noted that the original benchmarks set by Bush six months ago -- and endorsed by the Maliki government -- are not only unachievable in the short term but also irrelevant to changing the conditions in Iraq.

As they work to put together the reports due to Congress next week and in September, these officials and others close to Iraq policy recognize that the administration is boxed in by measurements that were enshrined in U.S. law in May.

"That is a problem," the official said. "These are congressionally mandated benchmarks now." They require Bush to certify movement in areas ranging from the passage of specific legislation by the Iraqi parliament to the numbers of Iraqi military units able to operate independently. If he cannot make a convincing case, the legislation requires the president to explain how he will change his strategy.

Top administration officials are aware that the strategy's stated goal -- using U.S. forces to create breathing space for Iraqi political reconciliation -- will not be met by September, said one person fresh from a White House meeting. But though some, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have indicated flexibility toward other options, including early troop redeployments, Bush has made no decisions on a possible new course.

"The heart of darkness is the president," the person said. "Nobody knows what he thinks, even the people who work for him."
Mixed Security Results

Military commanders say that their offensive is improving security in Baghdad. "Everything takes time, and everything takes longer than you think it's going to take," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, which is fighting south of Baghdad, said Friday. He added: "There is indeed room for optimism. I see progress, but there needs to be more."

Yet the month of May, which came before the Phantom Thunder offensive began, was the most violent in Iraq since November 2004, when U.S. and Iraqi forces fought a fierce battle to retake Fallujah. That intensity promises to continue through the summer. "I see these aggressive offensive operations . . . taking us through July, August and into September," Lynch said.

Not even the most optimistic commanders contend that the offensive is allowing for political reconciliation. At best, Petraeus is likely to report in September, security will have improved in the capital, perhaps returning to the level of 2005, when the city was violent but not racked by low-level civil war.

More significant is whether that slight improvement in security can be built upon. Regardless of what decisions are made in Washington and Baghdad, the U.S. military cannot sustain the current force levels beyond March 2008 because of force rotations. Long-term holding of cleared areas will fall to Iraqi soldiers and police officers.

Because of corruption and mixed loyalties, a Pentagon official said about the Iraqi police, "half of them are part of the problem, not the solution." The portrait officials paint of the Iraqi military is somewhat brighter. "These guys have now been through some pretty hard combat," said a senior administration official. "They're in the fight, not running from it.

"But can they do it without us there? Almost certainly not," the official said.

Even if U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies are able to hold Baghdad and the surrounding provinces, noted the intelligence official, there is a good chance that security will deteriorate elsewhere because there are not enough U.S. troops to spread around. As U.S. troop numbers decrease, he said, it is possible that by sometime next year "we control the middle, the Kurds control the north, and the Iranians control the south."
A Hurdle to Progress

Last month, Iraq's largest Sunni political grouping announced that its four cabinet ministers were boycotting the government and that it was withdrawing its 44 members from parliament. The immediate cause was the arrest of a Sunni minister on murder charges and a vote by the Shiite-dominated legislature to fire the Sunni Arab speaker.

The withdrawal poses a serious problem for short-term U.S. goals. A new law to distribute oil revenue among Iraq's sectarian groups -- seen by U.S. officials as the best hope for a legislative achievement before September -- reached parliament last week after months of delay. Although the Shiite and Kurdish blocs could pass it, the absence of the Sunnis would make any victory meaningless.

U.S. officials despair of any timely progress on the oil law. "I suppose they'll pass it when they damn well want to," one official said.

Plans to hold provincial elections, envisioned to provide more power to Sunnis who boycotted a 2005 vote, have grown more complicated. As Anbar tribal chieftains have emerged to help fight al-Qaeda, they have also demanded more political power from traditional Sunni leaders. In southern Shiite areas, Maliki's Dawa organization continues to vie with the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the largest bloc in the Shiite alliance that dominates Iraq's parliament, while both fear the rising power of forces controlled by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"In mixed areas such as Baghdad," a U.S. official said, "the Sunnis are worried that the Shiites will just clean up again even if [Sunnis] participate this time, because so many Sunnis" have fled sectarian violence in the capital.

Late last year, amid strong doubts about Maliki's leadership capabilities, senior White House officials considered trying to engineer the Iraqi president's replacement. But most have now concluded that there are no viable alternatives and that any attempt to force a change would only worsen matters.

Instead, U.S. officials in Baghdad are engaged in a complicated hand-holding exercise with Iraqi leaders, and are striving for small gains rather than major advancement. The main example of success they cite is agreement reached by the top Shiite, Sunni and Kurd officials in the government to appeal for calm after last month's bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra.

Officials are encouraged by the growing numbers of local Sunni officials and tribal leaders in Anbar striving to wrest political and security control from al Qaeda in Iraq. Bush has also highlighted the importance of such local efforts. "This is where political reconciliation matters most," he said in a speech last month, "because it is where ordinary Iraqis are deciding whether to support new Iraq."

But officials caution that this transformation is no substitute for a national Iraqi identity, with unified leadership in Baghdad. Maliki's Shiite-dominated government must continue to reach out to Anbar "and give these emerging tribal forces status, adopting them," a U.S. official said.

"Trying to do the local initiative stuff and having that be the whole story does not advance the process," he said.
Warnings on Withdrawal

Facing increased public disapproval and eroding Republican support, Bush has stepped up his warnings that a sudden U.S. withdrawal would allow al-Qaeda or Iran -- or both -- to take over Iraq. What is more likely, several officials said, is a deeper split between competing Shiite groups supported in varying degrees by Iran, and greater involvement by neighboring Arab states in Sunni areas battling al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Kurdish region, officials said, would become further estranged from the rest of Iraq, and its tensions with Turkey would increase.

"I can't say that al-Qaeda is going to take over, or that Iran is going to take over," an official said. "I don't think either are true. But I do think that a lot of very, very bad things would happen." If the administration decided to have troops retreat to bases inside Iraq and not intervene in sectarian warfare, he said, the U.S. military could find itself in a position that "would make the Dutch at Srebrenica look like heroes."

For its part, the military has calculated that a veto-proof congressional majority is unlikely to demand a full, immediate withdrawal. But however long the troops remain, and in whatever number, the military intelligence official said, they see a clear mission ahead. "We're going to get it as stable as we can, with the troops we have, and in the time available. And then, we'll back out as carefully as we can," the official said.

Staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report.

A GOP discord on Bush's Iraq strategy

A GOP discord on Bush's Iraq strategy
A growing number of Republican lawmakers are dissenting from the administration and urging for a change of course.
By Noam N. Levey
Times Staff Writer

July 7, 2007

WASHINGTON — Wearied by the lack of progress in Iraq and by the steady stream of military funerals back home, a growing number of Republican lawmakers who had stood loyally with President Bush are insisting his strategy has failed and are calling on him to bring the war to an end.

In the last two weeks, three GOP senators — including one of the party's leading voices on foreign affairs and one of Bush's strongest allies — have urged the president to change course now so U.S. troops can start to withdraw.

And Friday, in interviews with the Los Angeles Times, two more Senate Republicans bluntly voiced disappointment with the president's approach and pressed for change.

"It should be clear to the president that there needs to be a new strategy," said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. "Our policy in Iraq is drifting."

Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who helped lead the charge earlier this year against Democratic efforts to oppose Bush's troop buildup, said: "We don't seem to be making a lot of progress."

It is vital to have "a clear blueprint for how we were going to draw down," he said.

None of these GOP lawmakers has embraced Democratic legislation to compel a troop withdrawal. But nearly five years after congressional Republicans overwhelmingly answered Bush's call for military action against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, some are doing what was once unthinkable: challenging a wartime president from their own party.

By publicly branding Bush's buildup a failure and calling for troops to begin coming home, they are forcing a reluctant White House to reassess how long it can maintain a large military presence in Iraq.

Administration officials had hoped GOP lawmakers would stand with them at least until September, when the top generals in Iraq are scheduled to report on the effectiveness of the troop buildup.

The tide of Republican dissent began to grow two weeks ago when Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, former chairman of the foreign relations committee, delivered an earnest plea for change from the floor of the Senate. Sen. George V. Voinovich of Ohio expressed similar doubts in a letter he sent to the president the next day, and Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, the former chairman of the armed services committee, openly praised Lugar for speaking out.

On Thursday, Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico joined the group of dissenters, which just a few weeks ago included only a handful of GOP lawmakers — led by Nebraska's Sen. Chuck Hagel and Oregon's Sen. Gordon H. Smith.

Several Republican lawmakers have predicted that defections would accelerate in the weeks to come, despite repeated pleas for patience from the White House and the military.

"It's as if the dike has burst," said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who until recently had been one of the few outspoken GOP critics of the president's war strategy.

Today, bills in the House and Senate to adopt the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group — an implicit rejection of current U.S. policy in Iraq — have the backing of 40 Republicans combined. Though it did not set a deadline for withdrawing American troops, the bipartisan commission's report advocated a series of substantial policy changes, including more regional diplomacy, to set the stage for a troop pullout in the spring.

Alexander is the leading GOP co-sponsor of the Senate's Iraq Study Group bill, which is also sponsored by five Democrats and Republicans including Gregg, Collins, Domenici, Utah's Robert F. Bennett and New Hampshire's John E. Sununu.

House Republican co-sponsors include Californians David Dreier of San Dimas and Mary Bono of Palm Springs.

This week, another House Republican, conservative Rep. John T. Doolittle from Roseville, Calif., labeled the Iraq war "a quagmire" and called for a reduced U.S. military presence, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Three other GOP senators — including conservatives Sam Brownback of Kansas and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, a close Bush ally — also have signed on to legislation calling for decentralizing Iraq, a direct challenge to the Bush administration's official position.

Bush continues to say he will resist pressure to withdraw troops prematurely, a position he reiterated in a defiant Fourth of July speech in West Virginia, in which he said such action would "hand the enemy a victory and put America's security at risk."

In Iraq, senior military commanders said again Friday that the 30,000-troop "surge" announced by Bush in January still needed more time to control violence primarily in Baghdad and to allow the Iraqi government to bring together the country's sectarian communities.

Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of U.S. troops in provinces just south of Baghdad, warned that any move to withdraw the additional troops in the coming months would allow insurgents to rebuild their capabilities and plunge the Iraqi capital into even more violence.

"It would be a mess," Lynch said, echoing the views of other senior commanders — including Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander of U.S. operations, who has estimated that Iraqi forces would not be ready to assume security in Baghdad until spring.

Many Republican lawmakers remain wary of backing legislation that challenges the White House directly, preferring to try to persuade Bush to change course on his own to spare Republicans from having to force his hand, thus further splitting the party.

"There's always the desire to support the president," said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a maverick Republican who was among the first to call for the administration to develop a withdrawal plan. "He is the commander in chief. You hesitate to express a discordant voice at a time of war."

Snowe is sponsoring legislation that would require the military to begin planning a redeployment unless the Iraqi government reaches goals identified by the White House and Congress to reduce sectarian strife.

Even with the new public criticism of the White House, few congressional Republicans appear ready to back legislation that would compel a withdrawal, a centerpiece of the congressional Democratic war policy. This spring only two Republicans in the Senate and two in the House voted for a withdrawal timeline.

But the recent outpouring of criticism signals a new level of anxiety among many Republicans about the way their president is conducting the war.

Despite the administration's professed faith in the current Iraqi government, politicians in Baghdad have still not passed a law to distribute oil wealth that many see as crucial to diffusing sectarian tensions there.

U.S. military commanders concede that despite years of effort and billions of dollars in expenditures, Iraqi security forces are still not prepared to take primary responsibility for keeping the peace.

And U.S. casualties continue to mount.

April through June was the deadliest three-month period for U.S. forces since the war began in 2003, a tally that resonates with lawmakers, who often speak to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq.

Domenici has said that was why he decided to go public with his concerns about the White House war strategy.

"You find such a strong willingness on the parts of the parents to acknowledge that their children really wanted to be in this war," Domenici said Friday on NPR's "All Things Considered." "Only of late do I find that parents, a couple parents, saying … 'Now I want you to also try to hurry up, try to get on the side of where we can get out of there a little sooner.' "

At the same time, a number of Republicans up for reelection next year — including Snowe and Sununu — face growing voter discontent back home.

Democratic leaders and antiwar activists are pressuring Republicans to show their commitment to changing course by voting for a withdrawal. Later this month, Democrats will again bring the issue up for a vote.

But Democratic leaders concede that the president is likely to change course only when, in the words of veteran Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), Republican lawmakers "march down Pennsylvania Avenue" like they did three decades ago when they told President Nixon that he had to resign or would very likely be impeached.

There are signs that at least some in the administration are reconsidering the current strategy.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has repeatedly indicated that he would prefer to see the buildup end in the fall, perhaps as early as September when the administration is due to submit its progress report to Congress. Gates, who is sympathetic to the Iraq Study Group recommendations, also has testified on Capitol Hill that he hopes the additional forces could be home by the end of the year.

But Alexander warned Friday that the president is running out of time.

"The parade is forming. We hope he'll get to the front of it," he said. "It may not be this week or next. But it needs to be soon."

noam.levey@latimes.com

Times staff writers Peter Spiegel and Doyle McManus contributed to this report.

Key GOP Senator Breaks With Bush

Domenici Urges Change In Strategy on Iraq War

By Shailagh Murray and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 6, 2007; A01

White House efforts to keep congressional Republicans united over the Iraq war suffered another major defection yesterday as Sen. Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) broke with President Bush and called for an immediate change in U.S. strategy that could end combat operations by spring.

The six-term lawmaker, party loyalist and former staunch war supporter represents one of the most significant GOP losses to date. Speaking to reporters at a news conference in Albuquerque, Domenici said he began to question his stance on Iraq late last month, after several conversations with the family members of dead soldiers from his home state, and as it became clear that Iraqi leaders are making little progress toward national reconciliation.

"We cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress," Domenici said. "I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops. But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home."

The White House had hoped that Republican lawmakers would stand back until a mid-September administration report on military and political progress in Iraq resulting from the president's troop-increase plan, which has boosted U.S. forces by tens of thousands. But Domenici said the signal to Bush should be clear: GOP patience is running out much more quickly.

"What we're doing here could overtake the way we're handling things over there," he said.

Yesterday, Domenici embraced a new legislative proposal to reshape U.S. policy around the 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. In December, the bipartisan panel called for withdrawing most U.S. combat troops by March 31, 2008, although a limited number would remain in place for training and counterterrorism operations and other specific missions.

Democratic leaders waved off Domenici's announcement as all talk -- at least for now.

"Republicans will have the opportunity to not just say the right things on Iraq but vote the right way, too, so that we can bring the responsible end to this war that the American people demand and deserve," said Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.).

The Senate will reconvene next week to face a new round of Iraq-related votes as part of the annual defense policy bill, including various Democratic proposals to cut off war funding and to set a firm withdrawal date. But the dark horse may be the Iraq Study Group measure offered by Sen. Ken Salazar, a Colorado Democrat. Domenici quietly endorsed Salazar's proposal before the July 4 recess and announced his public support yesterday.

Salazar's bill has attracted 10 co-sponsors, including several lawmakers whose participation suggests that its cross-party appeal may be growing. The six Republican supporters include Sen. Robert F. Bennett (Utah), a close ally of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), and Sens. Judd Gregg and John E. Sununu, both of whom have remained loyal to Bush despite strong antiwar sentiment in their home state of New Hampshire.

Domenici and Sununu, along with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who also co-sponsored Salazar's measure, all face reelection in 2008 -- and are considered top Democratic targets. Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), the bill's original GOP co-sponsor, holds party leadership aspirations.

The five Democratic signatories are moderates. Along with Salazar, they include Sens. Bill Nelson (Fla.), Robert P. Casey Jr. (Pa.), and Blanche Lincoln and Mark L. Pryor, both of Arkansas.

Salazar said yesterday that Domenici's public endorsement could lure others looking for a "centrist alternative" on Iraq. Lee Pitts, an Alexander spokesman, said, "We hope that having his name on the bill will motivate others."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto stressed that the troop increase reached full strength less than a month ago, and that any sharp changes in war strategy should wait at least until September. "Senator Domenici is someone we have tremendous respect for," Fratto said. "We understand that senators and all Americans are frustrated."

He added: "You can't back out of the surge. The surge is in place, and it is going to be in place for some time. What we have to focus on and talk about is what happens sequentially next. And what happens next will be a decision that we have conversations about with Congress and with policymakers here and in Baghdad."

But, for Republicans, the floodgates have already started to break. Last week, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), the leading Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, delivered a rebuke to the White House on the Senate floor, declaring that the "current path" in U.S. Iraq policy is not acceptable.

Sen. John W. Warner (Va.), the former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, praised Lugar's speech and said he may offer his own amendments calling for a change in policy during the defense authorization debate next week. Sen. George V. Voinovich (Ohio) also endorsed a call for withdrawing troops, personally sending a letter to Bush with that request.

Before drafting the legislation, Salazar engaged in lengthy talks with former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), the study group's co-chairmen. The legislation was introduced in early June with little fanfare.

Many Democrats have dismissed it as a weak substitute for the tougher withdrawal terms that they want to force Bush to accept. But if Republican senators return to Washington in a state of mind similar to Domenici, Salazar's bill could become a serious legislative threat -- both to the White House and to antiwar Democrats, who favor a more definitive approach.

Domenici described to reporters the pleading tone he hears in phone calls with grieving families. He told of an exchange with one father, whom he quoted as saying: "I'm asking you if you couldn't do a little extra, a little more, to see if you can't get the troops back. Mine is dead, but I would surely hope that you would listen to me and try to get the rest of them back sooner."

Staff writer Michael A. Fletcher contributed to this report.

Domenici Breaks with Bush War Policy

By Paul Kane
Washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, July 5, 2007; 3:23 PM

Sen. Pete Domenici (N.M.), a 36-year Republican veteran of the Senate, abandoned President Bush's Iraq war policy today by publicly endorsing legislation designed to withdraw nearly all U.S. troops from Iraq by March 2008.

Domenici, a member of the defense appropriations subcommittee, is the fourth senior Senate Republican to sharply criticize Bush's war strategy in the past two weeks. He announced during a press conference in Albuquerque that he was co-sponsoring legislation that would embrace the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which called for a major redeployment that would leave only a limited number of troops in Iraq to focus on counter-terror operations and securing the border.

"I have carefully studied the Iraq situation, and believe we cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress to move its country forward," Domenici said. "I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops. But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home."

Domenici's defection is the latest from a growing number of senior Senate Republicans who have decided to oppose the White House's preferred plan of waiting for a mid-September progress report on the effectiveness of Bush's "surge" plan of boosting the U.S. deployment in Iraq this year by tens of thousands of troops.

Rather than wait for that report, to be drafted by the administration, Domenici and other senior Republicans have called for a change in course this summer in advance of the coming legislative fight this month in the Senate on the authorization bill for the Pentagon.

"I am unwilling to continue our current strategy," Domenici said flatly, blaming the Iraqi government for its inability to get its internal administration in order.

Early last week Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the leading Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, delivered a rebuke to the White House with a more than 5,000-word address on the Senate floor declaring that the surge was not working and that the "current path" on Iraq was not acceptable. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), the former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, applauded Lugar's speech and said he would offer his own amendments calling for a change in policy during the defense authorization debate next week.

And Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) also endorsed a call for withdrawing troops, sending a letter to Bush personally making that request.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) hopes to force Republicans into abandoning Bush on a series of votes on Iraq. As of now, he appears to be short of the two-thirds votes needed to over-ride a presidential veto of legislation setting a withdrawal date, but the statements from Domenici and the other senators give momentum to Democrats upon which they hope to build.

Specifically, Domenici endorsed a bill written by Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) that adopts the 79 recommendations from the Iraq Study Group, chaired by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), as the policy of the United States.

Iraq Appropriations Politics

This Fall, Democrats in Congress will finally get their say on Iraq.

President Bush recently got what he wanted -- a timetable removed from an Iraq emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Democrats fought for timetables and sure benchmarks. They ultimately caved, leaving many rank-and-file Democrats terribly angry.

The results of November's Congressional elections, if anything, were meant to cause a change in Iraq policy on Capitol Hill. That the House and Senate would give President Bush all of the funding he needs to conduct the war exactly how he wants without any binding requirements was a big blow

But the fight for the emergency appropriations bill is nothing in comparison to what's going to happen when the real, regular Iraq appropriations bill comes up this September

In September, General Petraeus has promised a report on the results of this summer's surge. And Petraeus and the Bush Administration have said that they'll determine what to do with U.S. involvement in Iraq based on the results of this report.

But recent news reflects clearly that the surge isn't saving Baghdad, and the American forces in Iraq can't really change the general dynamic of civil war there.

So it's no surprise that General Odierno is saying that it's going to take more time to issue the report. And no surprise that today Ambassador Crocker would say that it will take a lot longer than September to see results in Iraq.

Of course, you could wait forever for positive results in Iraq without seeing any, but that's beside the point. We're talking about September's appropriations bill for next year's war operations.

No amount of spin or attempting to recast the debate can get the President out of asking Congress for money. And he's going to have to ask around September in order to actually have the appropriations process work.

Without magnificent success to show for the surge, the President is going to have to announce a significant change of course in Iraq. A few different initiatives have been floated -- a 50% cut in troops in Iraq during 2008, and an endorsement of the Baker-Hamilton Report. President

As much as the President didn't agree with the results of the Iraq Study Group Report, it doesn't require the President to do much besides attempt to engage Iraq's neighbors in dialogue. A dialogue that can be ongoing, fruitlessly, while the President stays the course, with a little window-dressing, in Iraq. And don't forget, the Iraq Study Group explicitly did not include any timelines in their Report.

Let's say what it really is: President Bush's "endorsement" of the Iraq Study Group's recommendations would be a transparent play for time. So I believe this will be the core of what President Bush will propose along with his request for war funding this Fall.

Democrats in Congress cannot be satisfied with an Administration that simply states that it will adhere by the terms of the Baker-Hamilton Report. Letting the Administration off without more would damage their own credibility and truly alienate the Democratic base.

The Democrats will include a harsh timetable, one with teeth, in September. They will limit the President's license to carry out the war. And they will take steps that will lead to a drawdown in U.S. forces in Iraq. The need for money to continue the war, and Democrats' unwillingness to give it without strings, means that the President will have to accept changes. The only question is whether these changes will be entirely on his initiative or not. And based on the President's lack of creativity in Iraq policy, the answer will be "not."

The other alternative being floated -- a 50% cut in U.S. forces during 2008 -- reflects not what the President wants but what he will likely have to accept. Floating this idea is only the President looking forward to 2008 and trying not to look like he was politically defeated. It is not a positive initiative to win the war.

In light of the situation that will likely exist in September, the question for Democrats should be, "what conditions should we place on the President's conduct of the war in Iraq," and "what is the right way to withdraw the large majority of American forces from Iraq during 2008 and possibly 2009?"

These are difficult questions that must be taken very seriously. Up to this point, posturing and posing on Capitol Hill has been no problem because in the end everyone knew that Congress wasn't going to upset the war-funding applecart. This time, however, Congress is likely to get most of what it asks for.

Iraq Study Group Recommends Withdrawal

The Iraq Study Group that is the subject of intense speculation with regard to its "outsourced" solution to the cancer on President Bush's presidency, the War in Iraq, has decided to recommend no specific deadline for withdrawal, but to make it clear to Iraqis that Americans will leave Iraq within the near term.