Democrats draw a Vietnam parallel in denouncing US strategy

WASHINGTON -- As US forces fought on two fronts in Iraq, the Bush administration yesterday found itself in a political skirmish on Capitol Hill over criticism that it lacks a coherent exit strategy and as Democratic lawmakers appeared more emboldened to reference Vietnam.

Senator Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who has long opposed the war, called for a "road map out of Iraq" and alluded to "echoes of Vietnam."

"The harsh reality is this: One year after the fall of Baghdad, the United States should not be casting about for a formula to bring additional US troops to Iraq. We should instead be working toward an exit strategy," Byrd said.

"It is staggeringly clear that the administration did not understand the consequences of invading Iraq a year ago, and it is staggeringly clear that the administration has no effective plan to cope with the aftermath of the war and the functional collapse of Iraq."

But a few minutes after Byrd spoke, Senator John McCain made an impassioned speech in support of the mission in Iraq, championing the war as "the most noble act" a nation could perform in defense of "someone else's freedom." "I happen to know something about Vietnam, and I know we don't face another Vietnam," the Arizona Republican said.

Still, both Republicans and Democrats peppered administration officials with questions about the administration's plans for the June 30 transfer of power to Iraqis, complaining that they had been left out of the process.

"We really do need answers to very critical issues, and we're determined to get them," Senator Richard G. Lugar, a Republican from Indiana and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said at a hearing.

Many of the voices raising alarm about the escalating violence in Iraq called for "internationalizing" efforts by bringing in the United Nations and NATO forces. "The US desperately needs to take an American face off the occupation in Iraq, as the president has said," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. said at the hearing. The Delaware Democrat's speech compared the situation to the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, which helped turn US public opinion against the war.

"We may be a day late and a dollar short in getting the UN and NATO engaged, though," Biden said. "This administration I think has squandered so many opportunities. I think this is one last opportunity."

But specialists and UN diplomats said the surge in violence in Iraq makes it far harder to garner international support, and some said it is already too late to assemble such a force. "It's certainly a bad idea now," said Melvin Goodman, a former CIA analyst who is a professor of international relations at the National War College and a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. "The longterm strategy has to include internationalization, both politically and militarily. In the short term, there is no role for international forces. It's our own war."

The violence has also threatened to derail the work of the UN envoy to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, who is trying to broker a consensus on how to form a new government. A UN diplomat said that although Brahimi is not talking of cutting his trip short, little was being accomplished.

"Getting a consensus is that much more difficult because of the Shi'a involvement in the violence," said the UN official, who asked not to be identified. "There is a great divide between the Shi'a on the Governing Council and the Shi'a in the street."

"We are not cutting and running because of the violence," he said. "But everyone in Brahimi's mission is pretty depressed. They usually try to put the best face on things, but not now. The mood in Baghdad among everyone is very low because of what is going on."

At yesterday's Senate hearing on corruption inside Iraq's UN-run oil-for-food program, senators took the opportunity to grill US officials about their plans in Iraq.

When Robin Raphel, coordinator of the State Department's Office of Iraq Reconstruction, said the administration "hoped to arrange" for technical advisers to remain in Iraq's ministries after the transfer of power, Biden jumped in.

"I'm deadly earnest when I ask, why do you at this point only hope?" he asked. "Why don't you know? I mean . . . we're 12 weeks away."

"We are mindful of the need to keep Congress informed of what we're doing, what we're thinking, what we're planning," he said. Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry also criticized what he called the lack of information available about the administration's plan in Iraq. His remarks also referenced Vietnam, even as he encouraged Americans to support their troops.

"Is [the Bush administration] transferring it over to these people in the streets?" Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, asked in an interview with the American Urban Radio Networks. "Since I fought in Vietnam, I have not seen an arrogance in our foreign policy like this," said Kerry, who voted for the war in 2002 but has questioned the diplomacy that preceded the invasion. Farah Stockman can be reached at fstockman@globe.com. Correspondent Joe Lauria and Michael Kranish of the Globe staff contributed to this report.