Even Bi partison Senators are calling them GUERILLAS...while Rummie continues to live in denial of the truth....
At least he's consistant!
After Tour, Senators Warn U.S. Is Spread Thin in Iraq
By Eric Schmitt
The New York Times
Friday 04 July 2003
A bipartisan group of nine senators returned today from a three-day trip to Iraq, warning that
American forces there are stretched thin and will face continuing attacks from disparate but
increasingly organized Iraqi guerrillas.
The Pentagon has been pressing allies to contribute forces to bolster security, a step that
would ease the burden on American soldiers and give the occupation a more international face.
But the senators said that the United States was still likely to face a nation-building effort that
would take years, cost billions of dollars and require tens of thousands of American troops.
At a news conference at the Capitol, lawmakers described a country fitfully trying to rebuild
after being savaged by looters, saboteurs and Saddam Hussein's years of tyranny and neglect.
But the senators offered differing views on whether the Pentagon needed to reinforce its 146,000
troops in Iraq.
Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and former officer in the 82nd Airborne Division,
said that, officially, American commanders told him they had enough troops to do their mission.
"But they also said they could use any more that they got," he said in an interview later.
Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee,
cautioned that dispatching American reinforcements could hand the guerrilla fighters a
propaganda victory and reinforce the image of the American occupation.
The issue of reinforcements is a politically sensitive one for the administration. Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his top aides have refused to back down from their criticism
of Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, who said in February that it could take
"something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" to stabilize Iraq.
With General Shinseki, former commander of peacekeeping forces in Bosnia, looking more
prophetic each day, and the security situation in Iraq remaining tense, officials have refused to
entertain the idea of sending more American forces.
Asked this week if the United States should send reinforcements, Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen.
Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they would await a report due
later this month from Lt. Gen. John P. Abizaid, who has been designated to take command of
American forces in Iraq.
General Abizaid is scheduled to succeed Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who is stepping down on
Monday.
One of General Abizaid's first and most important tasks will be to figure out how many
American troops are needed in Iraq, which can go home and which need to stay, and for how
long, and what role allied forces will play.
There are about 12,000 allied troops in Iraq now, and Pentagon officials say that more than 30
countries have pledged a total of between 20,000 and 30,000 troops to replace them. Those
troops are scheduled to begin arriving in August.
"Our troops are stretched very thin," said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat
on the Armed Services Committee, urging the administration to reach out to countries that
opposed the war. "We must end the feud with Germany and France and with the U.N. We must
seek the help of those countries."
Republican senators played down the troop issue, and noted that American forces were taking
the fight to Baath Party loyalists, foreign fighters and criminals.
"If we get anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 international troops, and we are successful in
regards to the Iraqi police force and the armed services, we will have enough boots on the
ground," said Senator Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican who heads the Intelligence
Committee.
Iraq needs about 65,000 police officers, but American officials have been able to recruit and
train only 25,000 so far. There are about 10,000 American military police in Iraq, but virtually
every American unit in the country has troops assigned to security functions. There are about
30,000 American forces in and around Baghdad trying to help keep order, defense officials said.
Senators said the daily attacks on Americans appear not to be coordinated beyond the local
level, and in many cases the guerrillas demonstrate woefully poor marksmanship. "Some people
with a little money who are still loyal to Saddam Hussein will go out and hire the impoverished,
out-of-work individual who cannot feed himself or his family, hand him the cash and the
weaponry and say `Go do it,' " said Mr. Warner.
But commanders told the senators of more ominous signs. "There is organized resistance to
the American presence, and they are getting smarter about the way they do it," said Senator
John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the vice chairman and ranking Democrat on the
Intelligence Committee.
Mr. Rockefeller described a chilling instruction sheet that commanders in Iraq have obtained
that outlines how to kill American soldiers by shooting them in the exposed space between their
Kevlar helmets and top of their body armor.
Senator Roberts said that while the attacks are not highly organized now, "the word is, it could
come to that, if, in fact, we don't make progress" in the coming six months.
Indeed, there was no disagreement among the lawmakers that the American-led
reconstruction effort was a race against time to crush the guerrillas and saboteurs who are
imperiling security and disrupting electricity and other basic services, before the Iraqi people
turn against the United States-led occupation.
"We were told that the next 60 to 90 days would be crucial, and that, while it will take time,
time is not on our side," said Senator Mark Dayton, a Minnesota Democrat who is on the
Armed Services Committee. |
