McCain Calls for More Troops in Iraq

U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) speaks during a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq, Dec. 14, 2006. McCain said that America should deploy 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Iraq to control its sectarian violence and give moderates within the Iraq's democratically elected government the stability they need to take the country in the right direction. (AP Photo/Sabah Arar, Pool) (Sabah Arar - AP)

"Iraq is in crisis. The rising sectarian violence threatens the very existence of Iraq as a nation," she said. The current U.S. strategy in Iraq has failed, but "I'm not yet convinced that additional troops will pave the way to a peaceful Iraq in a lasting sense," Collins said.

"My fear is that if we have more troops sent to Iraq that we will just see more injuries and deaths, that we might have a short term impact, but without a long-term political settlement," she said.

Collins' remarks appeared to reflect the findings of the Iraq Study Group, which concluded that sustained increases in U.S. troops would not solve the fundamental problem and that violence would renew once those forces left the area.

While the senators were meeting with U.S. and Iraqi officials in Baghdad, Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi, was in Washington, where he called on the Bush administration to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops. Al-Hashemi said the timetable should be "flexible" and depend on development of an Iraqi security force.

"You've done your job," al-Hashemi, who met with Bush this week, said at the United States Institute of Peace, a U.S.-financed think tank. Currently, however, "there is across-the-board chaos in my country," he said.

Graham said he was shocked by the situation in Baghdad.

"The first time I came here with Sen. McCain we went rug shopping. Yesterday, we moved around in a tank. It's one of the most dangerous places on the planet," he said.

The congressional delegation, which also included Republicans Sen. John Thune of South Dakota and Rep. Mark Kirk from Illinois, left Baghdad on Thursday to tour the southern port city of Basra and Ramadi, the insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.

Lieberman said the senators met with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, and urged him to break his ties with Muqtada al-Sadr and disarm the anti-U.S. cleric's Mahdi Army militia, which has been blamed along with Sunni Arab insurgents for the sectarian violence and ruthless attacks on U.S. forces.

Al-Sadr controls 30 of the 275 parliament seats and is a key figure in al-Maliki's coalition.

Lieberman said the delegation left its meetings with al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani and other Iraqi officials believing "there is a force of moderates within the context of Iraqi politics coming together to strengthen the center here against the extremists."

He said the delegation was "quite explicit" about "how important it is that the Iraqis themselves begin to take aggressive action to disarm the militias, to stop the sectarian violence and to involve all the people in country to governance," including promised provincial elections.

But the senator also said moderates in parliament may look for another leader if al-Maliki fails to do that.

"What the U.S. needs and wants, and has to demand, is that in return for all that we're putting on the line here is that they take on the extremists," Lieberman said. "That's what this battle is all about."

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AP writer Anne Plummer Flaherty contributed from Washington.