Debate builds over creating exit plan
WASHINGTON -- Sunday's election in Iraq has prompted a sharp debate in Washington about a US exit strategy, with some arguing that it is time to announce a timetable or at least conditions for a US withdrawal, and others insisting that such moves would be dangerously premature.
Yesterday, the Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid of Nevada, called on President Bush to outline a plan for an eventual pullout from Iraq in his State of the Union address tomorrow, but rejected the idea of setting a deadline for withdrawal advocated by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Iraq's elections ''were a milestone," Reid said in a National Press Club speech he made alongside Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi of California. ''The president needs to spell out a real and understandable plan for the unfinished work ahead to defeat the growing insurgency, rebuild Iraq, increase political participation by all parties -- especially Iraq's moderates -- and increase international involvement. But most of all, we need an exit strategy so that we know what victory is and how we can get there."
But White House spokesman Scott McClellan indicated that the administration has no plans to talk openly about leaving Iraq and said setting a timetable for withdrawal would play into the hands of terrorists.
''We want to talk about the importance of completing the mission and helping the Iraqi people build a brighter future," he said. ''The mission is, as I stated, to put Iraq on a path to democracy and in position to be able to defend themselves. And then our troops can return home with honor."
Yet, the mere passing of what many saw as a successful election is set to change the constellation of US troops in Iraq.
General George W. Casey Jr., top US commander in Iraq, and Lieutenant General John Abizaid, head of US Central Command ''have made it very, very clear that the Iraqis don't want US troops to continue an occupation mission," said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. ''They want their own forces to take over."
On Sunday, Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib of Iraq told Britain's Channel 4 News that Iraqis ''will not need the multinational, foreign forces in this country within 18 months."
''I think we will be able to depend on ourselves," he said.
Most major Iraqi parties campaigned on the promise that they would seek a timetable for a US withdrawal. But in the run-up to the election, the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shi'ite coalition expected to win the lion's share of votes, quietly dropped its demand for a timetable from its platform, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
''Once they inherit power, they will have to face the reality that there is no Iraqi force in the country yet to keep security," said Phebe Marr, a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace.
Bush administration officials have resisted a timetable, saying it is difficult to predict the future and a deviation from the plan might look like failure.
Nearly everyone in the spectrum of the US debate agrees that a pullout must hinge on the ability to train Iraqi security forces, a process that was painfully slow in the first year of occupation but became more effective last spring with the appointment of Army General David Petraeus to oversee training and equipping the Iraqis.
Military specialists have said it will take between 12 months to five years for Iraqi security forces to be able to stand on their own.
''It's probably going to take until late 2005 to have enough Iraqi forces to make significant reductions [in US troops] beyond what we have already planned," Cordesman said, adding that the Bush administration has released almost no details on how it plans to equip Iraqi forces in preparation for a departure.
Another major issue, he said, will be the formation of the new Iraqi government and what requests it makes of the US-led multinational forces: ''What we don't know is what kind of government is going to be formed, how stable it is going it to be, how inclusive it is going to be, what its declared policies are going to be in its dealings with the US."
The Iraqi elections spurred a debate over an exit strategy among US foreign policy specialists for weeks before the polls.
Many of those calling for a swift withdrawal described the insurgency as an anti-American movement that would settle down after the departure of US forces, while many who urged staying the course saw attackers as enemies of a democratic Iraq.
Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said: ''Certainly the Democratic Party's conventional wisdom in 2004 was not to challenge Mr. Bush on the issue of an exit strategy, and some were even saying we should add troops. I think we will have this debate from now until the troops come home, as long as things are not going well in Iraq and the administration has not committed to a strategy."
Last week former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, who both served in Republican administrations, cowrote an op-ed article in The
The same day, Representative Martin T. Meehan, Democrat of Massachusetts, unveiled a detailed plan for a US exit in Iraq at a Brookings Institution panel.
''A timetable for withdrawal would be the light at the end of the tunnel" for the US military and the Iraqi people, Meehan said.
Fellow panelist William Kristol, the neoconservative founder of The Weekly Standard, praised Meehan for provoking discussion but rejected his plan, saying it would only embolden terrorists: ''I don't think announcing a withdrawal helps the Iraqis who are struggling to set up a viable democracy. Exit is a bad idea."
Farah Stockman can be reached at fstockman@globe.com.
