McGavick calls for bipartisan panel on Iraq war

Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick thinks he has a plan to steer the United States away from the polarizing positions of “cut and run” or “stay the course” on the Iraq war.

Monday he called for Congress to set up a balanced bipartisan committee from both houses to look for alternatives to the Bush administration’s current policy in Iraq and “ratchet up the pressure” on the Iraqi government.

A spokeswoman for his Democratic opponent, Sen. Maria Cantwell, said the country already has a bipartisan commission looking at Iraq. McGavick’s suggestion seems to be an attempt to distance himself from Republicans who control Congress and the White House and timed to coincide with the week ballots will be dropped in the mail.

“We don’t need a new committee now,” said Katherine Lister, a Cantwell spokeswoman. “If voters want to change the course of our Iraq policy, then they should vote to change who’s in charge of the agenda in Washington, D.C.”

McGavick held three news conferences in the state Monday to discuss Iraq, Social Security and the deficit. He said he formulated his plan over the weekend after seeing two key Republican senators, John Warner of Virginia and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, talk about the need for alternative strategies in Iraq. President Bush needs to listen to Warner, who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he said.

“We’re not having an honest dialogue of where we ought to be going,” McGavick said during his Spokane stop.

While Hagel called McGavick’s proposal generally in line with some of his ideas, Warner said he is planning for Armed Services to hold hearings on Iraq in November. Any new, special committee would have to wait for a new year, and a new Congress, he said.

Cantwell and McGavick have disagreed over Iraq policy for months. She has called for the Bush administration to begin redeploying troops this year, and seeking commitments from Arab and Muslim countries for replacement troops in Iraq. He’s emphasized the need for troops to come home only with a victory, although he has previously said the administration’s plans need to be revised.

McGavick has said Cantwell’s plan to seek help from Arab countries is unrealistic, and a pullout of U.S. troops would be dangerous. Cantwell has said McGavick’s stance amounted to allowing Bush to continue with a failed policy.

On Monday, McGavick described the Republican president as “bull-headed” on Iraq policy, and repeated a call for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign. If Congress were to set up a joint select committee, equally weighted with Republicans and Democrats, it could begin immediate hearings on Iraq and call a range of military experts for their opinions, he said.

Congress is on recess until after the Nov. 7 election. But if the leadership of both parties agreed, a select committee could get started before that, he said.

Rather than setting up a new committee, Cantwell believes Congress should take the recommendations of the recently formed bipartisan Iraq Study Group as soon as they are available and have “a responsible debate about how to change the course in Iraq,” Lister said.

Hagel was “very impressed” with McGavick and thought his ideas generally were in line with the Nebraska senator’s, but couldn’t comment on the specifics of the committee, said Mike Buttry, a Hagel spokesman.

Warner issued a statement saying that he told McGavick during their discussion Monday that he intends to schedule hearings on Iraq by the Senate Armed Services Committee in November. They never talked about Rumsfeld’s resignation, he added.

A decision on a new select committee “would be exclusively for the bipartisan leadership in the next Congress to evaluate and decide,” Warner said in his statement. “I note that the Iraq Study Group … is already under way with its own bipartisan review.”