Bush plan skepticism surges

WASHINGTON – President Bush is putting the final touches on his new Iraq policy amid growing skepticism inside and outside the administration that the emerging package of extra troops, economic assistance and political benchmarks for the Baghdad government will make any more than a marginal difference.

Washington’s debate over Iraq will intensify as Bush lays out his plans, likely on Wednesday or Thursday, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials face tough questions from Democrats in congressional hearings.

Senior military leaders and commanders are deeply worried that a “surge” of as many as five brigades, or 20,000 troops, in Iraq and Kuwait would tax U.S. ground forces already stretched to the breaking point – and still may prove inadequate to quell sectarian violence and the Sunni insurgency. Some senior U.S. officials think it could backfire.

“There is a lot of concern that this won’t work,” said one military official not authorized to speak publicly.

Meanwhile, the political and economic ideas under consideration all appear to be variations on initiatives that U.S. and Iraqi authorities have proved unable to implement successfully since the 2003 invasion, according to former U.S. officials and experts on reconstructing war-torn countries. Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the New York Times reported on its Web site Saturday that Bush’s plan includes a program to employ Iraqis that could cost $1 billion.

Many officials at the State and Defense departments also doubt that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is capable of the necessary reforms, despite his assurances in a speech Saturday that he would hold Iraqis accountable for implementing a new Baghdad security plan.

A sense that the White House is preparing more of the same is generating deep skepticism among Democrats in Congress, many of whom have signaled strongly they will resist sending additional troops to Iraq.

On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of California, and other Democrats cast the anticipated Bush plan as an escalation of the war that goes against the advice of senior U.S. commanders, rather than the significant change of course sought by American voters, and said as a result they will treat the plan – and new funding requests – with strong skepticism.

“If the president wants to add to this mission, he’s going to have to justify it,” Pelosi said on the CBS News show “Face the Nation,” emphasizing that the White House will no longer have a “blank check.”

Although Republicans say they are open to what Bush proposes this week, they are asking much more pointed questions.

Administration officials are pushing lawmakers and the public to withhold judgment until they see all the elements of the new Iraq policy. Bush consulted with advisers over the weekend, and speechwriters were working on this week’s address. There are signs that there could be some surprises as the administration’s debate moves from the staff level to the final deliberations of the president.

Responding to skepticism about al-Maliki within some parts of the administration, the White House may make a deeper involvement in Iraq contingent on al-Maliki cracking down on militias and death squads while also undertaking bold political initiatives and developing a wider economic plan, U.S. officials say. The addition of U.S. troops, for example, may be phased in over several months and conditioned on Iraq following through on promised political reforms, the officials said.

One senior White House official said the president considers the skepticism of lawmakers and the public “warranted” and that Bush will not “commit resources to a strategy that is not working.” But the official said Bush was heartened by recent promises and plans from al-Maliki, citing the speech Saturday in which the prime minister pledged a crackdown on sectarian militias, with U.S. assistance.

The official said U.S. and Iraqi leaders have been refining a new security plan, first discussed when Bush and Maliki met in Jordan in November, in which Iraqi forces would take the lead with Americans in support. “It is not just rhetoric,” the official said of Maliki. “He is actually putting forward specific plans and making different commitments than he has in the past.”

Others have doubts.

“I don’t know that the Iraqi government has ever demonstrated ability to lead the country, and we shouldn’t be surprised,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who was the first U.S. official in charge of post-invasion Baghdad.

Leon Panetta, a member of the Iraq Study Group, which recently delivered a wide-ranging set of recommendations, said the test for him of the seriousness of the president’s proposal will be whether Bush, in fact, conditions continued U.S. involvement on tangible progress from the Iraqi government.

“There has got to be some prospect that we are not just going to continue an open-ended commitment,” said Panetta, who served in the Clinton White House as chief of staff.

Senior military and administration officials privately admit their deep concerns that any troop increase will backfire – and leave the United States with no options in six to eight months.

Meanwhile, the Joint Chiefs of Staff are worried about overstretching the Army and Marines, which lack a significant pool of ready and available forces to send to Iraq. As a result, increasing ground troops would depend largely on extending units in Iraq and accelerating those preparing to go – meaning longer war-zone tours and shorter periods back home.

During its two-month interagency review, the administration has struggled most to come up with proposals to jump-start the stalled political process in Iraq, according to U.S. officials and Western diplomats.

But the emerging package looks slim and, absent last-minute additions, appears to be more of the same, according to sources who have been briefed.

The centerpiece of the political plan is creation of a national reconciliation government that would bring together the two main Shiite parties with the two largest Kurdish parties and the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials. The goal is to marginalize Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the largest and most powerful Shiite militia and head of a group that has 30 seats in parliament and five Cabinet posts.

To ensure participation of Sunni moderates, the Bush administration is pressing the al-Maliki government to take three other major steps: amend the constitution to address Sunni concerns, pass a law on the distribution of Iraq’s oil revenues and change the ruling that forbids participation of former Baath Party officials.

The three major economic options on the table would revive state-owned industries, launch a micro-finance program to give small loans to generate new businesses and expand a U.S. Agency for International Development stabilization program.

A fourth option would add major funds to a short-term work program to hire Iraqis to clean up trash or do repairs after U.S. and Iraqi troops secure neighborhoods. This Pentagon-run program is a way to lure unemployed men who had joined militias back into the mainstream economy, at least briefly, with the U.S. intention that Iraq would eventually spend its money to create permanent jobs.

Apparently absent from the final Iraq plan is any effort to engage Syria and Iran in trying to stabilize Iraq, a key recommendation from the Iraq Study Group, though the president will probably talk about new efforts to try to jump-start the Arab-Israeli peace process. Rice is expected to visit the Middle East to launch the effort later this month.