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Ambassador to Iraq warns against withdrawal |
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By Patrick Fitzgerald
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Posted: 07/19/07 03:22 PM [ET] |
On the heels of Wednesday’s failed Senate vote to begin withdrawal of American forces in Iraq, the top U.S. diplomat there Thursday told a Senate panel that the Iraqi government was making progress in forging a political compromise but needed more time.
Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee via video link in Baghdad, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said that after spending four months in the war-torn country, he found the atmosphere to be best summed up by “fear.” He reported that President Bush’s “surge” of troops in Baghdad was showing signs of quelling sectarian bloodshed and that a troop withdrawal would reverse those gains while opening “room to operate” for al Qaeda and Iran.
“For Iraq to move forward at any level, that fear is going to have to be replaced with some level of trust [and] confidence, and that is what the effort at the national level is about,” Crocker said. “[Fear] has permeated all echelons of this society.”
The ambassador backed away from the 18 benchmarks used by the White House to measure political, economic and military reforms in Iraq, cautioning lawmakers that relying too heavily on the legislated reports risked losing focus on the broader issues of political reconciliation. A White House report on the benchmarks released last week offered mixed reviews.
“The benchmarks can be a useful metric,” Crocker said, “But the longer I am here, the more I am persuaded that progress in Iraq cannot be analyzed solely in terms of these discrete, precisely defined benchmarks because, in many cases, these benchmarks do not serve as reliable measures of everything that is important — Iraqi attitudes toward each other and their willingness to work toward political reconciliation.”
Committee Chairman and presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) acknowledged the ambassador was in “a tough spot” and repeatedly questioned whether the Iraqi central government could provide security and services. Biden said American patience with the war was running short.
“There is no possibility that we will have 160,000 troops on the ground a year from now,” he said. “That is just not going to be the case. Time is running out in a big way.”
Crocker received sharp questioning from senators on both sides of the aisle. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), a critic of current war policy who is working on legislation with Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) to require the White House to prepare a new military strategy by mid-October, said the time has come to prepare for what comes next.
“We need to lay the groundwork for alternatives, so that when the president and Congress move to a new plan, it can be implemented safely and rapidly,” Lugar said. “If we have not made substantial diplomatic progress by the time a post-surge policy is implemented, our options will be severely constrained, and we will be guessing at a viable course in a rapidly evolving environment.”
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), another outspoken critic of Bush’s war policy, asked why the military was buying time for “a political reconciliation process that is not occurring.”
“How long is enough time?” Hagel asked. “We’re in our fifth year and see no political reconciliation occurring … I think we’re going backwards.”
Crocker said the Iraqi government has made encouraging efforts to address Shiite militias and maintained that he was not trying to paint a rosy picture of the situation.
Responding to a question from Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on whether de-emphasizing the benchmarks was keeping Americans from having something to look forward to, he said: “I’m certainly not moving any goal posts.”
At one point in the hearing, the video connection with Baghdad cut out, delaying the proceedings for several minutes. In a moment that drew some laughs from the packed gallery in attendance, Biden asked: “Baghdad, can you hear the U.S. Senate?” which in turn prompted a member of the gallery to cry out: “Senate, can you hear the American people?”
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