Austin American Statesman - Republicans Block Senate Vote on Iraq
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Austin American Statesman - Republicans Block Senate Vote on Iraq Withdrawal
By Bob Deans
..."The surge has only been at full force for three weeks," said Rep. Michael McCaul, of Austin. "It seems to me that, with Gen. Petraeus and the troops on the ground, we owe it to them to wait until the September report before we start second-guessing everything."
U.S. troops will have to remain in Iraq to fight militants and train Iraqi forces even after Americans redeploy from major combat operations, Iraq Study Group co-chairman Lee Hamilton told reporters. That would mean "tens of thousands" of American boots on the ground, he said, even if U.S. forces pull back from the fight by next May, as Wednesday's legislation would have mandated.
"Al Qaeda in Iraq remains a definite threat, and we have to have the combat capability in Iraq, under any scenario, to go after al Qaeda in Iraq," said Hamilton, former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He said he opposes a deadline for withdrawing troops, but favors measures to "put pressure" on Bush to change course in Iraq, shifting the primary U.S. military mission there from combat operations to training Iraqi forces and going after terrorists.
Those sentiments were echoed by McCaul, a backer of the Iraq Study Group and its findings.
"I believe that Special Operations Forces are going to have to be committed for a while to deal with these issues, because otherwise, it's their (al Qaeda's) open intention to make Iraq a base of operations," McCaul said.
McCaul is a co-sponsor of House legislation that would adopt the recommendations of Hamilton's study group as official U.S. policy. The congressionally mandated group co-chaired by Hamilton and former Secretary of State James Baker suggested in December that the U.S. military mission in Iraq be redefined to one of training Iraqi troops, combating terrorist groups and protecting U.S. troops and diplomats. The group also suggested a diplomatic offensive aimed at pulling Syria, Iran and other key regional players into the objective of helping to stabilize Iraq.
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