The new Democratic majority in the United States Congress was poised on Sunday for the first major policy confrontation with President George Bush as it declared the nearly four-year war in Iraq ”intractable” and demanded its end.
The demand came just days before Bush is scheduled to announce his new strategy for victory in the violence-torn country, which is reported to include a plan to bolster the US military presence in Baghdad by up to 20 000 troops and pour into Iraq millions of dollars of new aid to create jobs.
The president was expected to unveil his plan next week, possibly in a nationally televised speech on Wednesday.
But in a weekly Democratic radio address on Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made clear the congressional majority saw the solution in getting the troops out rather than sending more of them in.
”In pursuit of results, the new Congress will face many challenges this year, but none more important than working with President Bush to find an end to the intractable war in Iraq,” Reid said.
In contrast to President Bush, the Senate leader acknowledged Iraq was ”in the middle of” a ”civil war” and argued any attempt to resolve the problem by ”surging” US troop levels ”would be a serious mistake.”
”Rather than deploying additional forces to Iraq, we hope the president will make clear to the Iraqi government that the time has come for them to assume more responsibility for their future, and that he will announce he is beginning the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months,” Reid insisted.
He said US soldiers and their families had already sacrificed a great deal for Iraq and now it was ”time for the Iraqis to do their part”.
Reid stopped short of saying Democrats will used their newly gained power in Congress to block funding for new troop deployments to Iraq should the administration opt for a ”surge.”
But he promised that congressional Democrats will use upcoming Capitol Hill hearings ”to ask tough questions, demand real solutions, and keep working to bring this war to a close.” — AFP
