WASHINGTON – Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that the United States is losing what he described as a “civil war” in Iraq and that he is not persuaded that an increase in U.S. troops there would reverse the situation. Instead, he called for a new strategy that would relinquish responsibility for Iraqi security to the government in Baghdad sooner rather than later, with a U.S. drawdown to begin by the middle of next year.
Meanwhile, incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered qualified support Sunday for a plan to increase U.S. troops in Iraq, saying it would be acceptable as part of a broader strategy to bring combat forces home by 2008.
Powell’s comments broke his long public silence on the issue and placed him at odds with the administration. President Bush is considering options for a new military strategy, among them a “surge” of 15,000 to 30,000 troops added to the current 140,000 in Iraq – to secure Baghdad and to accelerate the training of Iraqi forces – or a redirection of the U.S. military away from the insurgency to focus mainly on hunting al-Qaida terrorists.
The situation in Iraq is “grave and deteriorating, and we’re not winning, we are losing. We haven’t lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around,” Powell said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
The summer’s surge of U.S. troops to try to stabilize Baghdad failed, he said, and any new attempt is unlikely to succeed, Powell said.
Before any decision to increase troops, he said, “I’d want to have a clear understanding of what it is they’re going for, how long they’re going for. And let’s be clear about something else. … There really are no additional troops. All we would be doing is keeping some of the troops who were there, there longer and escalating or accelerating the arrival of other troops.”
The “active Army is about broken,” Powell said. Even beyond Iraq, the Army and Marines have to “grow in size, in my military judgment,” he said, adding that Congress must provide significant additional funding to sustain them.
Reid, whose party campaigned in the November congressional elections on changing course in Iraq, said on ABC’s “This Week” that he would be open to a short-term increase of troops.
“If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we’ll go along with that,” said Reid, D-Nev., citing a time frame such as two months to three months. But a period of 18 months to 24 months would be too long, he said.
“The American people will not allow this war to go on as it has. It simply is a war that will not be won militarily. It can only be won politically,” Reid said.
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