US narrows down options on Iraq
Foreign Desk Report

WASHINGTON —A Pentagon review of Iraq has come up with three options — injecting more troops into Iraq, shrinking the force but staying longer or pulling out, The Washington Post reported Monday. The newspaper quoted senior defense officials as dubbing the three alternatives “Go big, go long and go home.”
The secret military study was commissioned by Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and comes as political and military leaders struggle with how to conduct a war that is increasingly unpopular, both in the United States and in occupied Iraq.
The postelection debate over Iraq is intensifying as members of Congress from both parties pose remedies and the Bush administration hunts for answers. Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York proposed a military draft, which the administration has repeatedly said it doesn’t need.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said more troops should be sent in and that the soldiers there now are “fighting and dying for a failed policy.” Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said troop withdrawals must begin within four to six months.
“I believe the consequences of failure are catastrophic,” said McCain. “It will spread to the region. You will see Iran more emboldened. Eventually, you could see Iran pose a greater threat to the state of Israel.” Taking the opposite tack, newly empowered Democrats pressed their case for a phased withdrawal of American forces.
They hope a blue-ribbon advisory panel led by Bush family friend and former Secretary of State James Baker and former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton, would propose a way ahead for Iraq, while making clear the U.S. military mission shouldn’t last indefinitely.
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he’d like to see the commission assert that U.S. troop commitments are not open-ended; propose a clear political road map for Iraq; and recommend engaging Iraq’s neighbors in a political and diplomatic solution.
The United States should “begin to let the Iraqi leadership know we’re not going to be staying,” he said Monday on NBC’s “Today” program. “Over the next four months let them know we’re going to start to phase out, force them to have to address the central issue. That is not how to stand up Iraqis, but how to get Iraqis to stand together,” Biden said.
“The idea that we’re going to have 140,000 troops in Iraq this time next year is just not reasonable,” he said. McCain, a front-running GOP presidential hopeful for 2008, said the U.S. must send an overwhelming number of troops to stabilize Iraq or face more attacks — in the region and possibly on American soil.
“The consequences of failure are so severe that I will exhaust every possibility to try to fix this situation. Because it’s not the end when American troops leave.