Democrats: Panel's Findings Consistent With Their Proposals

By Bill Brubaker and Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 6, 2006 6:34 PM

Congressional leaders of both parties today welcomed the report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group as a chance to build a national consensus over how to proceed in a conflict that has claimed almost 2,900 American lives, cost $400 billion and shows no signs of abating.

While some Democrats treated the group's findings as an indictment of President Bush, key Republicans agreed it should trigger a national debate about the nearly four-year-old conflict.

"The American people can now be very clear that no alternative, no option for success in Iraq, has been taken off the table for ideological or partisan reasons," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), a member of the Senate Armed Services committee.

Launched with the aim of spreading democracy in the Middle East and uncovering weapons of mass destruction, the 2003 invasion of Iraq has devolved into a combination of bloody sectarian warfare and an all-out insurgency against U.S. and Iraqi military forces. Among the group's most prominent recommendations was for the United States to scale back its ambitions to helping the Iraq government build a police and military that can handle internal security.

Democratic leaders portrayed the report as the latest indictment of the Bush administration's policies.

"It is clear, now, that there is no one in America, save perhaps the president, who believes that staying the course is a viable policy," said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader next month.

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who will become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the report "represents another blow at the policy of stay the course that this administration has followed. Hopefully, this will be the end of that stay-the-course policy."

Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the study group's findings come far too late for policy changes to have a meaningful effect in Iraq. He said he hopes the report highlights how difficult the struggle to salvage the situation will be.

"I hope that expectations are adjusted," Meehan said in an interview this afternoon. "Part of the problem with Iraq all along has been the failure of the administration to come clean with the American people about the failures. The Iraq Study Group lays out many of the things that a lot of us have been talking about for quite some time."

White House spokesman Tony Snow insisted at a news briefing that the report echoes, in many ways, the administration's existing policies.

"Stay the course is not the policy and the president has been saying that for months," he said. "We have discussed the importance of trying to come up with a transition where the Iraqis stand up and take greater responsibility. We have talked about the importance of having Iraqis assume primary combat control."

Snow said the administration continues to oppose direct dialogue with Iran, which the study group proposes, to end the violence in Iraq. But he declined to discuss many of the other specific recommendations in the report. "Give us a couple of days to try to parse it," he said.

Democratic leaders said the report underscores the message American voters sent in the November mid-term elections, when Democrats gained control of the House and Senate.

House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement that the study group's recommendations are consistent with Democratic proposals "to change the primary mission of U.S. troops in Iraq from combat to training and support, which would enable the redeployment of U.S. forces to begin."

"Now that the study group has endorsed this proposal, I hope that the president will recognize that he must take our policy in Iraq in a new direction," Pelosi said.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the committee will hold "extensive hearings," beginning in mid January, to examine the report's recommendations.

"It will last probably six to eight weeks," Biden said of the hearings. "And we're going to bring in every reasonable person we can find -- left, right and center, military, civilian and government -- to discuss elements of this report and discuss what alternatives there may be beyond or included within the report."

Biden called the report a "significant contribution," but added, "The real hard, hard question is: What is the political consensus that will be arrived at among the Iraqis? And if they do not arrive at one, all the king's horses, all the king's men, all the international conferences in the world will be for naught."

While praising the report, some Democratic lawmakers said it didn't go far enough.

"Meeting the report's goal of getting our combat troops out of Iraq by early in 2008 is essential to forcing the diplomatic and political steps needed to achieve stability," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a statement. "I wish the report went further by making this a hard deadline for redeploying our combat troops."

Iraqi leaders, he added, "have proven time and again that they only respond to hard deadlines."

A Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee, Phil Gingrey (Ga.), said the report went too far by suggesting the United States hold talks with Iran and Syria.

"I just can't imagine either one of those countries being interested in fostering our foreign policy and helping us solve a terrible dilemma," Gingrey told MSNBC. "There's going to be a price demanded, whether Syria is going to say leave us alone and let us continue to play mischief in south Lebanon with Hezbollah or whether [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad says, look, turn your back while we continue to develop nuclear weapons."

It was unclear today what steps, if any, Bush will take in response to the study group report and another major review being prepared by the Pentagon.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the report offers the president a "lifeline of opportunity" to turn things around in Iraq.

"If he takes it, there's a chance we can find a new, bipartisan way forward, a chance that Iraq, one day, might be a place of stability, rather than a failed state with warring factions," Feinstein said.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a Vietnam veteran who currently chairs the House Armed Services Committee, called the study group's recommendations "fairly complex and robust."

Asked if Bush should embrace the recommendations, Hunter said: "We should come out of this process as a unified country standing behind our president . . . not a group over here in Congress saying the president is going the wrong direction."

The report, Hunter said, should be used "as a tool to advise the president."

Snow was asked at the White House briefing if Bush will announce any policy changes for Iraq by year's end.

"I don't know," Snow said. "It's a good question."

A moment later, Snow said Bush will "describe what he sees as the way forward" after the administration examines the study group and Pentagon reports.

"Because it's clear," Snow said, "that the present situation is not one that can be sustained or accepted."

Staff writer Josh White contributed to this report.