Democratic Lawmaker Calls for Summit on Iraq
Sun November 9, 2003 12:31 PM ET
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By Lori Santos
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top U.S. Senate Democrat urged President Bush on Sunday to call a summit on Iraq seeking international troops and assistance in exchange for a greater say in operations.
Speaking after a week in which 33 American soldiers were killed, Sen. Joseph Biden, joined by a number of other Democrats, said U.S. policy in Iraq was foundering and it was time for Washington to cede control in Iraq.
"It's time to make a fundamental shift in the way in which we are going about trying to win the peace here," Biden, a Delaware Democrat, told ABC's "This Week" program.
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, a Democratic presidential candidate, insisted: "We have to change course."
"The problem is the president ... is completely unwilling to relinquish control. That's the critical thing that is missing from this process," Edwards said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
And Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, told "Fox News Sunday," "We're going to have to give up some of the control that we have in Iraq, and that's what's being considered right now, finally."
Biden, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Bush must change gear and appeal for international assistance by ceding U.S. control in post-war Iraq, where insurgents have now killed 150 American soldiers since the Republican president declared major combat over on May 1.
"It entails the president, literally, not figuratively, calling a summit with our European friends and saying, 'Look, we got to make three changes,"' Biden said.
Security should be turned over to a NATO-led force, and a high commissioner appointed like the one that helped Bosnia recover from its 1992-95 ethnic war, not necessarily an American, reporting to NATO and the U.N. Security Council, Biden said.
CHANGES IN GOVERNING COUNCIL
Third, the United States should "make changes" in the U.S.-appointed Governing Council in Iraq, he added, pointing to a report in The Washington Post on Sunday that said U.S. officials were considering alternatives to the Council to ensure the U.S.-led administration could hand over power as troops are withdrawn.
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