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 News from Around the Americas | November 2006 
Democrats, Engaging Bush, Vow Early Action Over Iraq
 Carl Hulse & Thom Shanker - NYTimes
| | U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton speaks at the U.N. headquarters in New York November 11, 2006. The Bush administration is intent on overcoming Democratic opposition to Bolton, the White House said on Sunday, but top Democrats said Congress would not confirm the outspoken envoy. (Reuters/Keith Bedford) |
Democrats sought on Friday to put their new political power to use in shaping the debate over Iraq, promising stepped-up Congressional oversight of the war and a resolution demanding a schedule for reducing the number of troops there.
After two days in which both sides pledged bipartisanship in the aftermath of the Democratic victory in the midterm elections, leaders of the new Democratic majority began asserting themselves, seeking to give Congress a greater role in both foreign and domestic policy after years in which, in their view, President Bush was granted too much latitude.
After meeting with Mr. Bush at the White House, Senator Harry Reid, the incoming Senate majority leader, said "the first order of business" when Democrats formally take over in January will be to reinvigorate Congressional scrutiny of the executive branch, with a focus on Iraq.
"Let's find out what's going on with the war in Iraq, the different large federal agencies that we have," said Mr. Reid, Democrat of Nevada. "There simply has been no oversight in recent years."
The willingness of Democrats to begin confronting Mr. Bush and his party over Iraq suggested that the early promises of cooperation across the aisle would be tested quickly by deep differences over policy and political imperatives on both sides.
The post-election session of Congress that begins Monday, with Republicans still in charge, is likely to bring clashes between the two parties on a number of topics, including Mr. Bush's call for the confirmation of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations and for legislation authorizing the administration's eavesdropping program.
With the White House having expressed a readiness to consider new ideas on Iraq, Democrats also said they were drawing up plans to keep the pressure on Mr. Bush to alter his approach to the war.
In doing so, they are trying to offer new strategy initiatives in a growing debate over Iraq that already includes the Iraq Study Group, a commission that is slated to make recommendations next month. Senior military officers have also ordered a broad review of strategy in Iraq and have enlisted a team of innovative officers to conduct it.
Though Democrats will not take power until January, the incoming chairmen of the committees with jurisdiction over national security said in interviews that they hoped to persuade Republicans to respond to their losses at the polls by backing resolutions - perhaps as early as the lame-duck Congressional session beginning next week - that call on Mr. Bush to change course.
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, who is in line to become chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Congress must be the agent "to make it clear to the Iraqis that we cannot save them from themselves."
"They need to make the political compromises that only they can make," Mr. Levin added. "We've got to let the Iraqis know there is no open-ended commitment."
Mr. Levin has for several months advocated linking the presence of American troops to political progress in Iraq, a stance that Pentagon officials had dismissed as reckless but that is now gaining wider, even bipartisan, support. While there is no language yet for such a resolution, he indicated that it could describe the requirements for continued American military commitment to Iraq, and some specified number of months for its duration.
"At the end of this time period, we would begin the reduction of American forces," Mr. Levin said. "I think such a resolution would have tremendous power on the president. It would not just represent a bipartisan majority of Congress, and its urgent recommendation. It would be a reflection of the people's voice as expressed" at the polls.
Even before Election Day, Democrats were trying to focus attention both on management of the war and potential fraud and abuse by contractors. Jim Manley, an aide to Mr. Reid, said new oversight by the Democratic majority in the Senate would most likely continue those lines of inquiry. In Los Angeles, Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is to lead the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, said in a speech that war profiteering could also be a likely subject for his committee.
Mr. Reid is also interested in completing the long-delayed second phase of an Intelligence Committee review into prewar intelligence and the administration's handling of it, Mr. Manley said.
In his meeting with the president, Mr. Reid said he also raised the idea of a bipartisan Congressional conference on Iraq with Mr. Bush. "He didn't reject it," Mr. Reid said of the president. "He said he thought it was interesting. He wanted more openness on Iraq."
The White House had little comment on Mr. Reid's push for more oversight.
"I'll let that speak for itself," Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said. "The most important priority right now is to win a war on terror and keep America safe and figure out ways that both parties can work together with the shared responsibility of having victory in Iraq and also providing the tools for law enforcement and intelligence officers to be able to detect planned attacks on the United States and prevent them from taking place."
Trying to tamp down concerns about a potential blizzard of subpoenas that some Republicans had warned of should Democrats control Congress, Mr. Reid dismissed that idea, and his aide said he was just trying to restore Congress's traditional role.
"There will be times, on rare occasions, when subpoenas will have to be offered, but rarely," he said. "If Congress does its job and does Congressional oversight, as has been done for more than 200 years, it's good for everyone."
While Democrats made criticism of the war a central element of their successful midterm election campaign, translating that into policy once they take charge on Capitol Hill is more problematic. The president, as commander in chief, directs the military and Democrats have consistently said they would not take steps like cutting off money for operations in Iraq.
But Democrats can use other tools to advance their ideas on the war, though they will also have to find some consensus among the current Democratic members of the House and Senate and those elected on Tuesday.
In calling for a timeline for American troop reductions, some Democrats have advocated a parallel increase in the number of American military trainers to improve the quality of Iraqi security forces. Some have called for maintaining substantial numbers of American ground forces in nearby Kuwait - or perhaps at major bases in parts of Iraq, such as northern Kurdistan, with lower levels of violence. Under this plan, the American troops would generally be pulled out of harm's way in Iraq, but could act as a "quick-reaction force" to reinforce Iraqi security personnel if overwhelmed by insurgent attacks.
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the Democrat who is to be chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he would press for an international conference on Iraq, inspired by the Dayton sessions that brokered an end to the bloodshed in Bosnia by summoning Serbs, Croats and Bosnians to an American military base in Ohio for talks.
Mr. Biden also called on Mr. Bush to sit down with members of Congress to find a consensus on how to proceed.
"I hope there is enough Republican as well as Democratic support," he said, "for a bipartisan effort to press the president very hard to sit with us, anywhere from the White House to Camp David - without our staffs and cellphones - to actually hammer out what I think a number of us on both sides of the aisle believe are necessary elements of an Iraq policy."
After that, Mr. Biden said, the president should convene "a Dayton-type conference" of Iraq and its neighbors to create the political process "of keeping the neighbors out" of Iraq and "contain Iraq to keep it from becoming a full-blown civil war."
Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting. |
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