The Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is mounting a direct challenge to United States’s President George Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq.
The senator from Illinois, and Hillary Clinton’s most formidable challenger for the Democratic nomination, on Tuesday introduced a Bill that would see US combat troops withdrawn from Iraq by spring 2008.
”It is important at this point that Congress offer specific constructive approaches to what’s proven to be a foreign policy disaster,” Mr Obama said in an interview with the Associated Press, ”because we’ve got too much at stake to simply stand on the sidelines and criticise.”
Obama — who, unlike Clinton, voted against authorising Bush to go to war in Iraq — would cap troop numbers in Iraq at around 130 000, the level that existed in early January when the president announced another 21 500 more troops for Iraq. His Bill would require troops to start returning to the US in May and for all combat forces to be back by March 31 2008. But unlike Democratic presidential rivals, such as senator John Edwards and the former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, Obama would stop short of cutting congressional funding for the extra troops.
While Obama’s Bill is unlikely to be approved, it adds to the weight of congressional opposition to Bush’s troop ”surge”. The Senate is expected to vote next week on a resolution opposing the troop increase. Although non-binding, such a vote is seen as politically damaging to Bush, underlining his political isolation.
A senior US official said on Tuesdya that Bush’s ”new way forward” plan for Iraq would take several months to implement. Apart from additional troops, the US would also provide economic aid, even though Iraq had about $12-billion at its disposal.
”The Iraqi budget process is dysfunctional so the US has to put in money. Iraq needs that financial bridge,” the ambassador and state department coordinator for Iraq, David Satterfield, told an audience at the think tank Chatham House.
Amid concern that the US was laying the groundwork for military action against Iran, Satterfield categorically denied that there was any appetite for such a strike.
”Iran will be challenged in Iraq,” he said. ”We are confident our concerns with Iran can be addressed within the borders of Iraq.”
But the White House rhetoric on Iran, backed by the deployment of a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, has fuelled disquiet about the administration’s intentions.
At a senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday for John Negroponte, who is in line to become Condoleezza Rice’s deputy at the State Department, Obama voiced concern ”that we stumble into active hostilities with Iran without having aggressively pursued diplomatic approaches, without the American people understanding exactly what’s taking place”.
The US is showing no signs of easing the pressure on Iran. General Raymond Odierno, the second-in-command of US forces in Iraq, has accused Iran of supplying Iraqi militias with powerful weapons such as Katyusha rockets.
”We have weapons that we know through serial numbers … that trace back to Iran,” General Odierno told USA Today.
He said the weapons included the RPG-29, a rocket-propelled grenade that can fire armour-piercing rounds, Katyusha rockets so large they are generally fired from trucks, and roadside bombs that can also pierce armour.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the US air force might use aggressive new tactics designed to deter Iranian assistance to Iraqi militants. The efforts could include more ”forceful” patrols by air force and navy fighter planes along the Iran-Iraq border to counter the smuggling of bomb supplies from Iran. – Guardian Unlimited Â