The active Army is about broken

Article Last Updated:12/17/2006 06:17:40 PM MST
Posted: 6:16 PM- WASHINGTON - Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Sunday that the United States is losing what he described as a "civil war" in Iraq and that he is not persuaded that an increase in U.S. troops there would reverse the situation. Instead, he called for a new strategy that would relinquish responsibility for Iraqi security to the government in Baghdad sooner rather than later, with a U.S. drawdown to begin by the middle of next year. Powell's comments broke his long public silence on the issue and placed him at odds with the administration. President Bush is considering options for a new military strategy - among them a "surge" of 15,000 to 30,000 troops added to the current 140,000 in Iraq, to secure Baghdad and to accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and others have proposed; or a redirection of the U.S. military away from the insurgency to focus mainly on hunting al-Qaeda terrorists, as the nation's top military leaders proposed last week in a meeting with the president. But Bush has rejected the dire conclusions of the Iraq Study Group and its recommendations to set parameters for a phased withdrawal to begin next year, and he has insisted that the violence in Iraq is not a civil war. "I agree with the assessment of Mr. Baker and Mr. Hamilton," Powell said, referring to the study group's leaders, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Indiana congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D). The situation in Iraq is "grave and deteriorating, and we're not winning, we are losing. We haven't lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around." Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," Powell seemed to draw as much from his 35-year Army career, including four years as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as from his more recent and difficult tenure as Bush's chief diplomat. The summer's surge of U.S. troops to try to stabilize Baghdad failed, he said, and any new attempt is unlikely to succeed. "If somebody proposes that additional troops be sent, if I was still chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my first question ... is what mission is it these troops are supposed to accomplish? ... Is it something that is really accomplishable? ... Do we have enough troops to accomplish it?" Although he said he agreed with Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, that there should be an increase in U.S. advisers to the Iraqi military, he said that "sooner or later you have to begin the baton pass, passing it off to the Iraqis for their security and to begin the drawdown of U.S. forces. I think that's got to happen sometime before the middle of next year." Before any decision to increase troops, he said, "I'd want to have a clear understanding of what it is they're going for, how long they're going for. And let's be clear about something else. ... There really are no additional troops. All we would be doing is keeping some of the troops who were there, there longer and escalating or accelerating the arrival of other troops." He added: "That's how you surge. And that surge cannot be sustained." The "active Army is about broken," Powell said. Even beyond Iraq, the Army and Marines have to "grow in size, in my military judgment," he said, adding that Congress must provide significant additional funding to sustain them. Powell also agreed with the study group's recommendation that the administration open talks with Syria and Iran as it gropes for a solution to the Iraq problem. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have explicitly rejected talks until Syria ends its destabilizing influence in Lebanon and its support for anti-Israel militants, and until Iran suspends its nuclear enrichment program. The administration has charged both countries with aiding the Iraqi insurgency. "Do they get marginal support from Iran and Syria? You bet they do," Powell said of the Iraq militants. "I have no illusions that either Syria or Iran want to help us in Iraq. I am also quite confident that what is happening in Iraq is self-generated for the most part. The money, the resources, the weapons are in Iraq already." He added: "Are Iran and Syria regimes that I look down upon? I certainly do. But at the same time, I've looked down on many people over the years, in the course of my military and diplomatic career, and I still had to talk to them." During Bush's first term, Powell was often on the losing side of disagreements with then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and the president over a range of foreign policy issues, including the Arab-Israeli peace process, North Korea and Iraq. Although he ultimately supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq - and played a major role in building public backing for war when he delivered a U.N. Security Council speech saying Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction - he objected to the administration's detention and interrogation policies for "enemy combatants" and privately questioned the lack of planning and troop strength for postwar Iraq. His low-key departure from office in January 2005, following Bush's request for his resignation, stood in contrast to Friday's ceremonial farewell to Rumsfeld, whose retirement festivities at the Pentagon were attended by Bush and Cheney. Asked Sundayy whether he agreed with Cheney's assessment that Rumsfeld was "the finest defense secretary of defense this nation has ever had," Powell demurred. "Well, that's the vice president's judgment," he said. "I've known many fine secretaries of defense. ... But it's history that will judge the performance of all of us in this troubling time ... and it is a history that I think will ultimately be written as a result of what happens in Iraq." - By Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post

Reid: Brief troop increase OK in Iraq

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press WriterSun Dec 17, 4:01 PM ET

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 (news, bio, voting record), 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 (news, bio, voting record), 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.
Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said any proposal to send more troops should only follow a political solution that will end civil unrest. "The president and others who support the surge have it exactly backwards," Biden said during a speech in Manchester, N.H.
Powell said if more troops were proposed, commanders would need to make their mission clear, determine whether they can accomplish it and what size force is appropriate. "We have to be very, very careful in this instance not just to grab a number out of the air," Powell said.
He noted that the Iraqi leadership wants to take control of security for Baghdad. While saying he does not know if that is possible now, "This is the time to say to them, `Fine, you think you can do that. Show us not only the political will to do that, show us the political means you're going to use.'"

Increasing troops would run counter to recent recommendations by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which set a goal of withdrawing combat troops by early 2008 in support of more aggressive regional diplomacy.

Powell said that U.S. troops should not act as policemen. He described the active U.S. Army as "about broken," with a shortage of equipment, officers going on repetitive tours and gaps in military coverage elsewhere in the world.
"The current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform," he said. "And the Congress has a serious task ahead of it, to make sure that the Army and the Marine Corps get the funds they need to sustain themselves and to sustain their equipment and their ammunition."
Asked if victory was possible, Powell said: "If victory means you have gotten rid of every insurgent, you have peace throughout the country, I don't see that in the cards right now. What we are going to have to do is try to bring a sense of order and security to the country, even if there continues to be low-level violence and insurgency."

He said such a victory must increasingly become the responsibility of the Iraqi leadership.
"If they can't pull it off, if they can't demonstrate the political will and means to go after the militias, to create a military force that is answerable and confident in the government, and to root out the corruption that exists in the police forces — if they are unable to do that, the United States is not going to be able to do it for them," Powell said.

Reid spoke on ABC's "This Week," Kennedy was on "Fox News Sunday," Powell appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation" and Reed and al-Hashemi were on "Late Edition" on CNN.
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.