Reid: Brief Troop Increase OK in Iraq

Photo made available by the U.S. marines Saturday Dec. 16, 2006 shows U.S. Marines provide security, Petty Officer 3rd Class Jason Deguzman, a 23-year-old Navy corpsman from Santa Rosa, Calif., tending to 2nd Lt. Samuel Joiners wounds received from an improvised explosive device blast while patrolling in Anah, Anbar province, Iraq, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2006. The Marines and sailors, part of the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based Company A, 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, have spent nearly three months conducting security operations to Rawah and Anah, two cities along the Euphrates River about 200 kilometers (150 miles) northwest of Baghdad. (AP Photo/Lance Cpl. Nathaniel F. Sapp, U.S. Marines) (Lance Cpl. Nathaniel F Sapp - AP)

WASHINGTON -- The Senate's top Democrat offered qualified support Sunday for a plan to increase U.S. troops in Iraq, saying it would be acceptable as part of a broader strategy to bring combat forces home by 2008.

President Bush's former secretary of state, however, expressed doubts any troop surge would be effective, noting U.S. forces already are overextended. "The American Army isn't large enough to secure Baghdad," said Colin Powell, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman during the 1991 Gulf War.

Yet more American soldiers in Baghdad is precisely what Iraq's Sunni vice president said is necessary to quell sectarian violence _ even though the Shiite-dominated government has proposed shifting U.S. troops to the capital's periphery and having Iraqis take the primary role for security.

"Who is going to replace the American troops? ... Iraqi troops, across the board, they are insufficient, incompetent, and many of them (are) corrupted," said Tariq al-Hashemi, who met with Bush in Washington last week.

There are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and about 5,000 advisers. Combat troops make up less than half of U.S. forces in Iraq.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose party campaigned in the November congressional elections on changing course in Iraq, said he would be open only to a short-term increase.

"If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that," said Reid, D-Nev., citing a time frame such as two months to three months. But a period of 18 months to 24 months would be too long, he said.

"The American people will not allow this war to go on as it has. It simply is a war that will not be won militarily. It can only be won politically," Reid said.

At least three other Democrats did not support Reid's position on the additional troops.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said that if it were a short-term increase, "won't our adversaries simply adjust their tactics, wait us out and wait until we reduce again? So I think you'd have to ask very serious questions about the utility of this."

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said, "I respect Harry Reid on it, but that's not where I am."

Kennedy, like Reed a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said there would be widespread opposition by members of his committee if Bush proposed a troop increase.