4/7/2008 5:01:31 PM Capitol Hill is gearing up for the latest update on progress in Iraq. The unpopular war will be the focus of testimony from U.S. Army General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker. They will appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday in a follow-up to September's hearing at which Gen. Petraeus promised Congress that the civil strife within Iraq would be resolved.
Committee Chairman and Delaware Democrat Sen. Joseph Biden said that he would ask Petraeus for an update on what the surge has achieved as well as future plans for U.S. troops in the region.
“Last September, Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus testified about the status of the surge. They told us the surge would start to wind down this spring - and that they would come back to recommend to the President and to Congress what should come next,” Biden said in a statement. “The purpose of the surge was to bring violence down in Iraq so that its leaders could come together politically. Violence has come down, but the Iraqis have not come together.”
Petraeus is expected to request a temporary stop in withdrawing troops. He is expected to ask for a six-month stay for reductions that began in December, resulting in 140,000 troops in the country. Biden said that should a stronger troop presence be requested, it could only mean that the surge is not achieving its desired objective.
“We don't know what Crocker and Petraeus will say, but if it is their recommendation that we will not be in a position to further draw down U.S. forces after the surge ends, there could be no clearer acknowledgment that the surge has not succeeded in achieving its stated purpose — building self-sustaining stability in Iraq,” the Delaware Senator added.Republican candidate and Arizona Senator John McCain will be present at Tuesday's hearing. Monday, he told a veteran's convention in Kansas City that there is a light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq, and that the United States is no longer staring into what he called the "abyss of defeat." "Our goal is an Iraq that no longer needs American troops," said McCain. "And I believe we can achieve that goal, perhaps sooner than many imagine. But I do not believe that anyone should make promises as a candidate for president that they cannot keep if elected. To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests and the future of the Middle East is the height of irresponsibility. It is a failure of leadership."An economic slowdown and likely recession in the U.S. has increased pressure to set an end date to the Iraq War, which the Pentagon estimates has cost over $600 billion and could run into the $1 to $2 trillion range.
“Iraq is not happening in a vacuum,” Senator Biden said. “Every extra day we stay at these levels, the price we pay gets steeper: the risk to our soldiers; the strain on their families; the drain on the treasury; the impact on readiness; and the damage to our standing in the world.”
The focus of money and resources in Iraq also has Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid upset. The Nevada Democrat emphasized problems facing the United States at home, while billions are spent on a war he declared as unwinnable a year ago.
“We are building barracks in Iraq when we should be helping millions of Americans avoid losing their homes to foreclosure,” Reid said. "We are policing the streets of Baghdad when we should be investing in universal health care and a better education system. We are protecting oil fields in Basra when we should be funding renewable energy production to help stem the tide of global warming."
He continued, "The war in Iraq will ensure that we leave future generations with trillions of dollars in debt. Instead of making our own country safer, we are greasing the pockets of corrupt Iraqi politicians and buying their temporary cooperation. And let's not forget Iraq is not a poor country."
The political impact of the testimony will be ratcheted up considerably, as all three major candidates for the Presidency - Senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain - plan on questioning Petraeus Tuesday. He will also appear before the Senate and House armed services committees and the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
However, for many Americans, the Iraq war has lost prominence. In mid-March, around the 5th anniversary of the war, the U.S. military death toll hit 4,000. However, a poll from Pew Research Center found that only 28 percent of the public knew that that many Americans had died in the war, evidence that attention being paid to the conflict is diminished.
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