WASHINGTON (AP) -- The senior
Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee proposed Monday
that Iraq be divided into three
separate regions -- Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni -- with a central
government in Baghdad.
In an op-ed essay in Monday's edition of The New York Times, Sen.
Joseph Biden. D-Del., wrote that the idea ''is to maintain a united
Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group ...
room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in
charge of common interests.''
Biden and co-writer Leslie H. Gelb, former president of the Council
on Foreign Relations, wrote that President Bush ''must direct the
military to design a plan for withdrawing and redeploying our troops
from Iraq by 2008 (while providing for a small but effective
residual force to combat terrorists and keep the neighbors
honest).''
The White House on Sunday defended its prewar planning against
criticism from an unlikely source -- former Secretary of State Colin
Powell.
In an interview broadcast Sunday in London, Powell revisited the
question of whether the U.S. had a large enough force to oust Saddam
Hussein and then secure the peace.
Powell said he advised now-retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who developed
and executed the 2003 Iraq invasion plan, and Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld ''before the president that I was not sure we had
enough troops. The case was made, it was listened to, it was
considered. ... A judgment was made by those responsible that the
troop strength was adequate.''
Current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was Bush's national
security adviser at the time of the invasion, responded, ''I don't
remember specifically what Secretary Powell may be referring to, but
I'm quite certain that there were lots of discussions about how best
to fulfill the mission that we went into Iraq.
''And I have no doubt that all of this was taken into consideration.
But that when it came down to it, the president listens to his
military advisers who were to execute the plan,'' she told CNN's
''Late Edition.''
Rice said Bush ''listened to the advice of his advisers and
ultimately, he listened to the advice of his commanders, the people
who actually had to execute the war plan. And he listened to them
several times,'' she told ABC's ''This Week.''
''When the war plan was put together, it was put together, also,
with consideration of what would happen after Saddam Hussein was
actually overthrown,'' Rice said.
In their essay Monday, Biden and Gelb wrote: ''It is increasingly
clear that President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in
Iraq. Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and pass the problem along
to his successor.''
Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991
Gulf War and is known for his belief in deploying decisive force
with a clear exit strategy in any conflict.
''The president's military advisers felt that the size of the force
was adequate; they may still feel that years later. Some of us
don't. I don't,'' Powell said. ''In my perspective, I would have
preferred more troops, but you know, this conflict is not over.''
''At the time, the president was listening to those who were
supposed to be providing him with military advice,'' Powell said.
''They were anticipating a different kind of immediate aftermath of
the fall of Baghdad; it turned out to be not exactly as they had
anticipated.''
Rumsfeld has rejected criticism that he sent too few U.S. troops to
Iraq, saying that Franks and generals who oversaw the campaign's
planning had determined the overall number of troops, and that he
and Bush agreed with them. The recommendation of senior military
commanders at the time was about 145,000 troops.
AP
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