WASHINGTON – Top U.S. military commanders warned Thursday that the recent explosion of sectarian killing in Baghdad may drive Iraq into civil war with increased American casualties, but they said there will be no change in U.S. strategy and no troop withdrawals in the near future.
Under sharp prodding from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army Gen. John Abizaid, who commands U.S. forces in the Middle East, could not say what the U.S. military role in Iraq would be if that country slides into unrestrained civil war. They also offered no details of a U.S. strategy for disarming Shia and Sunni militias that have been marauding through Baghdad, often in the uniforms and vehicles of Iraqi security forces.
The generals, together with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, were staunch in turning aside calls for phased U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, an idea that, polls show, is backed by increasing numbers of Americans and a demand that will be a centerpiece of many campaigns in this fall’s elections.
“Americans didn’t cross oceans and settle a wilderness and build history’s greatest democracy only to run away from a bunch of murderers and extremists,” Rumsfeld told the panel.
Rumsfeld acknowledged that, with Iran balking at international demands to halt its nuclear program, resurgent Taliban forces on the attack in Afghanistan and with the war between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon further polarizing the region, U.S. interests are at risk as never before.
“It’s a difficult and delicate situation,” he said, a sentiment echoed by Abizaid, who has spent much of his career in the Middle East.
Knitting together Iraqi society, empowering reconciliation and ending the violence is a responsibility of the Iraqi people, according to Pace.
“Shia and Sunni are going to have to love their children more than they hate each other,” he said.
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