Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Senator John Warner, an influential Republican on defense matters, urged President George W. Bush to announce by Sept. 15 a plan to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, a suggestion the administration rejected.
Yesterday's statement by Warner, a five-term Virginia senator, combined with a new report by U.S. intelligence agencies that concluded Iraq's political leaders still can't govern effectively, will add fuel to the debate over the war when Congress returns from recess next month.
``We simply cannot as a nation stand and continue to put our troops at continuous risk of loss of life and limb without beginning to take some decisive action,'' Warner, who returned from Iraq last week and met with top administration officials yesterday, said during a news conference at the Capitol.
Political and foreign-policy analysts said Warner's remarks will increase Republican defections to oppose the war even if it is unlikely to change the president's mind.
For Republicans who may be on the fence, ``it's really nice to have some highly respected, senior, conservative senator go out on a limb,'' said Charlie Cook, publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Still, he said, it won't be sufficient opposition to force Bush's hand. ``The president doesn't want Iraq lost on his watch,'' Cook said.
Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for Bush's National Security Council, said Bush's opposition to setting a timetable for withdrawal hasn't changed and lawmakers should await an assessment from Army General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
``I appreciate the senator's comments,'' Johndroe said in Crawford, Texas, where Bush is vacationing. ``But we will wait until Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus return from Baghdad and make their report.''
Warner, a former Navy secretary and ex-chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said a withdrawal plan would send ``a sharp and clear message throughout the region'' that the U.S. commitment to Iraq isn't open-ended. The timing of any withdrawals and the number of troops involved would be left up to the president, he said.
The struggle between the White House and the Democratic Congress to control the course of the Iraq war is headed for a showdown in September, when Petraeus and Crocker testify at the Capitol and the administration gives a formal progress report to lawmakers.
``This portends a big fight ahead,'' said David Gergen, a White House adviser to presidents of both parties who is a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Warner spoke shortly after National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell released an assessment that said the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will become ``more precarious'' in the next six to 12 months and that the level of overall violence in that country ``remains high'' even with the addition of 30,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines in recent months.
The report also warned that a change in the current U.S. mission would ``erode'' the modest, ``uneven improvements'' in Iraq's security.
Congress, which returns Sept. 4 from its August recess, is scheduled Sept. 11 to hear from Petraeus and Crocker on the impact of the extra troop deployments that Bush ordered in January. The military ``surge'' was intended to buy time for the Iraqi government to make political progress toward reconciliation.
Several members of Congress visited Iraq during their August recess. Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the Armed Services Committee and made the trip with Warner, concluded that Maliki's government is incapable of producing a political settlement and therefore should be voted out of office by Iraq's parliament.
Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said this week she agreed with Levin, and called on Iraqi lawmakers, who also are on August holiday, to replace Maliki ``with a less divisive and more unifying figure.''
Senator John McCain of Arizona, a Republican presidential contender who backs the war effort, said yesterday that ``following the path to begin an immediate withdrawal would be a grave mistake.''
Warner, 80, said his recommendation wouldn't ``pull the rug out from under the troops'' and that he is urging Bush to simply declare on Sept. 15 that he's ``decided to initiate the first step'' in a withdrawal plan that might bring as many as 5,000 soldiers home by Christmas. There currently are 162,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
``I really, firmly believe the Iraqi government under the leadership of Prime Minister Maliki has let our troops down,'' Warner said.
``Warner is basically saying it's time to fold,'' said Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a national security adviser in the Clinton White House. ``It's exactly where the president is not.''
Bush, who defended his war strategy at a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Aug. 22, is scheduled to deliver another war-related speech Aug. 28 to the American Legion.
Bookmarks