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White House Lobbies Lawmakers on Iraq NewsMax.com Wires WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. diplomat in Iraq said Thursday Baghdad was making some political progress but there was "much to do and much room for improvement." In prepared remarks to a Senate panel, Ryan Crocker also warned lawmakers against relying heavily on a list of benchmarks to measure gains made in Iraq. Earlier this year, Congress asked the White House to report on progress made in 18 target areas for political, security and diplomatic reforms; last week, the administration reported mixed results. "The longer I am here, the more I am persuaded that progress in Iraq cannot be analyzed solely in terms of these discreet, precisely defined benchmarks because, in many cases, these benchmarks do not serve as reliable measures of everything that is important - Iraqi attitudes toward each other and their willingness to work toward political reconciliation," Crocker said. His remarks were to be transmitted to members of the Foreign Relations Committee via satellite from Baghdad. In anticipation of the hearing, the panel set up several large flat-panel screens, including one sitting on the witness table facing the senators. Crocker is likely to face tough questions on the war. In addition to the panel's Democrats, who support legislation ordering troop withdrawals, six of the 10 Republicans on the committee have expressed serious doubts about Bush's Iraq strategy. Among the skeptics on the panel is Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the committee's top Republican. Lugar and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., have drafted legislation that would require Bush to deliver to Congress by mid-October a new military strategy to end major combat. The White House is pushing hard to buy time for its Iraq strategy, offering Congress unusual access to President Bush's top military and diplomatic advisers. Story Continues Below
About 200 lawmakers were invited to the Pentagon for a classified question-and-answer session on Thursday with Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. The two men were expected to brief lawmakers via satellite from Baghdad. Bush's new war adviser, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, also was to be in the room. The officials were expected to make the case that some progress has been made in Iraq since Bush ordered the deployment of some 30,000 extra troops earlier this year. The officials also were expected to argue it is too early to tell whether the strategy is working, and that members of Congress should hold off on demanding change until at least September. The briefings cap off a week of contentious Senate debate on the war and a public relations blitz by the administration to shore up GOP support. Republican support is crucial for Bush because of the narrow margins in the Senate and the minority party's ability to block any legislation with a filibuster. So far, GOP lawmakers have been mostly united in rejecting Democratic demands to set a deadline for troop withdrawals. On Wednesday, they helped scuttle a bill by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., that would have ordered troops to start leaving this fall and end major combat by April 30. The legislation was backed by a slim majority of senators in a 52-47 vote, but fell short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate and end a GOP-threatened filibuster. On Wednesday as senators cast their vote, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shuttled between meetings with members on Capitol Hill to make the administration's case for the war. Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, has made similar rounds, including a private briefing on Iraq last week for more than a dozen GOP senators. Members say they are happy about the administration's new outreach effort, even if they disagree with the message or still have doubts about the war. Still, it was unclear how many members were planning to take up the White House on its offer to be bused to the Pentagon. "I think it is accurate to say the administration is listening as never before," Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said after meeting Wednesday with Rice for 40 minutes in his office. "And I think that is a very encouraging thing, because America needs to come back together around a way forward in the war on terror." Smith, who is up for re-election next year, is one of three Republicans - alongside Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska - who supported the Democratic proposal ordering troop withdrawals. Collins, who also will face voters in 2008, voted to advance debate on the measure as well, but said she still opposed the underlying bill. Collins and about a half dozen other Republicans support a far less sweeping measure by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., that calls on Bush to adopt the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. The independent panel urged Bush to hand off the combat mission to the Iraqis and step up diplomatic efforts, paving the way for a 2008 drawdown of U.S. troops.
© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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