Friday, January 26, 2007

Warner says U.S. military has been misleading Congress

The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - U.S. military commanders have "misled" senators on the Iraqi military's ability to oversee security operations, an unusually combative Republican Sen. John Warner said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday.

Warner questioned why there are so few Iraqi troops in Baghdad - despite years of training and repeated assurances from U.S. military leaders that more American troops would not be needed.

"I think we, this committee and the Congress, have been misled," Warner told retired General John Keane, the former vice chief of staff of the Army.

"Because time and time again, military officers have sat there and said, 'Here's the number of battalions and they're growing, they're training, and the status of their equipment and so forth,'" he said. "I had placed a high degree of confidence in the representations that this army was up and standing and ready to work. Now, I've got to move along here."

Keane replied that "growing and developing an army from scratch" takes time and that newly trained Iraqis need to get operational experience.

Warner also said he would write to General John Abizaid, the head of Central Command, and ask him why too few Iraqi troops are able to take the place of U.S. forces.

Virginia's senior senator on Monday joined two Republicans and one Democrat in introducing nonbinding legislation expressing disagreement with President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq.

The president should consider "all options and alternatives" involving a smaller force, the measure said.

Warner, a former Navy secretary who was chairman of the Armed Services Committee until Democrats took power this month, was initially a strong supporter of the war.

But in October, he returned from a visit to Iraq and said the country was "drifting sideways."

No comments: