Analysts Debate Proposal to Increase Troop Levels in Iraq

KWAME HOLMAN:

President Bush was a world away in Asia, but even there he was asked about the growing debate in Washington over whether to send more troops to Iraq on top of the nearly 150,000 there who are taking near-record high casualties.

Today, standing next to the Indonesian president who wants U.S. troops to leave Iraq, President Bush wouldn't commit one way or the other.

GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: I haven't made any decisions about troop increases or troop decreases, and won't until I hear from a variety of sources, including our own United States military.

KWAME HOLMAN:

The White House, the Pentagon and the congressionally-mandated Baker-Hamilton commission all are in the midst of preparing recommendations on Iraq policy. Press reports quoting Pentagon sources have prompted speculation that the U.S. military is planning for a last big push in Iraq, a short-term build-up before leaving the country.

In Congress, the issue has split Republicans. Senator John McCain of Arizona has proposed to send in more troops.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), Arizona: We've got to arrest the momentum of the death squads. We've got to continue training the Iraqi army and American presence in Iraqi units and put Americans into the police force. Do we have enough troops to do all that? No, we do not.

KWAME HOLMAN:

But the outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, said it should be Iraqis, not Americans, taking the bigger combat role.

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), Chair, Armed Services Committee: And before we start juggling deployments and planning a blueprint for a different strategy that requires different levels of troops, let's use what we've got, what we've trained.

KWAME HOLMAN:

And congressional Democrats continued to press for a timetable for withdrawal.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D), Michigan: We must tell the Iraqis that we would begin, starting in four to six months, a phased reduction of our troops, because if you don't do that, they're going to continue to have the false assumption that we are there in some kind of an open-ended way.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East warned against setting a timetable, saying it would limit the military's flexibility. And in a colloquy with McCain, Army General John Abizaid also turned aside the idea of a big troop buildup, saying there were enough American boots on the ground.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID, Top U.S. Commander in the Middle East: We can put in 20,000 more Americans tomorrow and achieve a temporary effect. But when you look at the overall American force pool that's available out there, the ability to sustain that commitment is simply not something that we have right now with the size of the Army and the Marine Corps.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Yesterday, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the BBC that a "clear military victory" in Iraq no longer is possible.

HENRY KISSINGER, Former Secretary of State to Presidents Nixon and Ford: I think we have to re-define the course, but I don't believe that the alternative is between military victory, as it has been defined previously, or total withdrawal.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Kissinger, who has become an important outside adviser to President Bush on the war, also argued against a fast American withdrawal from Iraq.