Democrats Reduce Forces
// They prevent George Bush from multiplying US troops in Iraq
The news that 3,000 troopers are about to be sent to Kuwait to reinforce US troops in Iraq blew up the political situation in Washington. Potential 2008 presidential candidate Senator-Democrat Joseph Biden, who will head the Senate’s International Affairs Committee, promised not to allow sending new troops to Iraq. Short truce for Iraq issue was interrupted when Democrats became sure of George Bush’s reluctance to reconsider his policy on Iraq.
Senator Joseph Biden, one of the most influential politicians among US Democrats, made a very emotional statement during the call-in press conference on Tuesday. It looked like giving a speech during a pre-election campaign rally, rather than answering journalists’ questions. Biden will head the Senate’s International Affairs Committee on January 1, 2007, and he made it clear that the “truce” for Iraq issue, which set in in early December after a number of conciliatory moves of Bush administration, is over. “This strategy is completely wrong. I am absolutely against sending additional US troops to Baghdad. This step would contradict to the opinion of the majority of informed people both inside the administration, and outside it,” said Biden, cracking down on the president’s policy on Iraq.
To prove his statement that Bush’s stand on Iraq does not have even a minimal support both of the society and of political class, Biden richly quoted the extracts from the reports by RAND Corporation and by Iraq Study Group, prepared for Bush and which the latter ignored. Apparently, Biden’s strongest argument is that “General Casey, about whom it is said that he supports sending troops to Iraq,” on the contrary, is now against it.
Biden actually displayed his ambition to become Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2008 by means of Iraq issue, and to get ahead of two other popular politicians in Democratic camp, -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Moreover, Biden made it clear for Republicans that further support of Bush’s policy will be an act of political suicide. He said if the violence in Iraq goes on for two more years before the elections, then “every 21st Republican senator to go for re-election” will sentence himself to loosing.
Opening of Iraq hearings in the Senate’s International Affairs Committee, scheduled for January 9, 2007, promised to become quite stormy. The Committee will hear US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice., and other high-placed US top officials. However, it remains unclear yet, whether Rice will come to the Senate on January 9. According to Biden, Rice agreed to speak to the Committee, but only after President Bush discloses his new plan for Iraq (the date of Bush’s speech, which should take place before his annual address to the Congress on January 23, is not affirmed yet).
Thus, the truce for Iraq issue in Washington lasted exactly three weeks, since early December. US Congress created Iraq Study Group on December 6. The group, headed by former secretary of state John Baker and ex-congressman Lee Hamilton, submitted a report on Iraq to President Bush. The report sharply criticized the administration’s actions in Iraq since the very beginning of the military operation there. Moreover, it said that further military presence in Iraq harms US interests. For the first time in recent years, the White House did not offer excuses, but made it clear that Baker-Hamilton’s conclusions are seen as a guide to action. New Secretary of Defense Richard Gates addressed the Senate then, making a number of sensational statements which Washington observers took as a coming change in US policy on Iraq. Consequently, Democrats became assured that after November midterms to Congress, in which Republicans suffered an overwhelming defeat, President Bush decided to make concessions in Iraq issue.
However, it turned out that conciliatory statements of Bush and his team were intended to break the élan of Democrats, who took control over both houses of the Congress. White House’s reluctance to reconsider its policy on Iraq was proved by the news about the preparation for sending additional troops to Iraqi front. US Air Defense said on Tuesday that 3,300 servicemen of the 82nd airborne division of the U.S. will be sent to Iraq’s neighbor Kuwait soon after the New Year. Anonymous sources in US Department of Defense said that it was Richard Gates, new chief of Pentagon, who sanctioned sending troops to Kuwait, the very Gates who made sensational statements that the U.S. is not winning war in Iraq, and who even refused to confirm that Bush’s decision to launch a military operation in Iraq was right.
Thus, Biden became the first Democrat to announce that his party feels cheated now, and that it will no longer fall for White House’s tactic tricks. Biden’s statement was made at the same time with White House’s official announcement that President Bush went off to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on Tuesday, to make the final decision about his new doctrine for Iraq, which is to be announced in January. Crawford will host today the National Security Council’s session devoted to Iraq. Besides Bush, it will be attended by Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and President’s National Security Advisor Stephen Headley. However, this session will not bring final decisions. The administration’s spokesman Scott Stencil, the Council will gather many times before Bush announces his doctrine.
Apparently, this pause before the president’s decision will predetermine the main intrigue of US politics in first weeks of 2007. Democrats will be trying to subdue Bush’s stubbornness and to make him change his plan in the last moment, forcing him to choose leaving Iraq, and not strengthening US military presence there.
Sergei Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 28, 2006
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