Senators say Bush must face Iraq reality

WASHINGTON -- President Bush should tell Americans that the nation faces ''a long, hard slog" in Iraq, a key Republican senator said yesterday, and another said the White House was ''disconnected from reality" in its optimism over the war.

''Too often we've been told and the American people have been told that we're at a turning point," Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said on NBC's ''Meet the Press." ''What the American people should have been told and should be told [is that] it's long, it's hard, it's tough."

''It's going to be at least a couple more years," said McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, was quoted by US News & World Report as saying the administration's Iraq policy was failing.

''Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse," said Hagel, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. ''The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

The two senators made their remarks as the Bush administration is pushing to counter growing public impatience with the Iraq war, and to resist demands by some lawmakers to set a date for withdrawal of US forces.

Polls indicate that the Iraq war is losing support and hurting Bush's popularity.

In a New York Times/CBS poll conducted June 10 to June 15, only 37 percent of Americans surveyed approved of Bush's handling of Iraq, down from 45 percent in February.

Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted that the insurgency is in its ''last throes."

Senator Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on ''This Week" on ABC, ''It's important the administration quit trying to pretend everything is going very well here. It's not."

Bush will play host to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Iraq on Friday and give a speech on Iraq on June 28 to mark a year since the transfer of sovereignty from the US-led coalition to Iraqis.