Former US secretary of state Colin Powell is casting doubt on a plan under consideration by President George W. Bush that would increase troops in Iraq, calling the US Army overextended and "about broken."
The incoming Senate majority leader, however, offered qualified support for a troop surge, saying it would be acceptable for a few months as part of a broader strategy to bring combat forces home by 2008.
"If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that," Democratic Senator Harry Reid said, citing a timeframe of two to three months. But a period of 18 months to 24 months would be too long, he said.
Bush is reviewing options for a change of course in Iraq and plans to address the nation early next month.
On Sunday, the Iraqi vice president called for more US soldiers in Baghdad to quell sectarian violence -- even though the Shiite-dominated government has proposed shifting US troops to the capital's periphery and letting Iraqis assume primary responsibility for security in the city.
`Incompetent'
"Who is going to replace the American troops?" asked Tariq al-Hashemi, who met Bush in Washington last week. "Iraqi troops, across the board, they are insufficient, incompetent and many of them corrupted."
There are approx. 140,000 US troops and about 5,000 advisers in Iraq. Combat troops make up less than half of US forces in Iraq.
Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for former president George Bush during the 1991 Gulf War, said if more troops were proposed, commanders would have to make their mission clear, determine whether they can accomplish it and what size of military force is appropriate.
"I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work," said Powell, who was secretary of state from 2001 until last year. "We have to be very, very careful in this instance not just to grab a number out of the air."
Increasing troops would run counter to recent recommendations by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which set a goal of withdrawing combat troops by early 2008 in support of more aggressive regional diplomacy.
Not policemen
Powell said that US troops should not act as policemen. He described the US Army as "about broken," with a shortage of equipment, officers going on repetitive tours and gaps in military coverage elsewhere in the world.
"The current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform," he said. "And the Congress has a serious task ahead of it, to make sure that the Army and the Marine Corps get the funds they need to sustain themselves and to sustain their equipment and their ammunition."
Reid, whose party campaigned this fall on changing course in Iraq, said he would be open only to a short-term troop increase.
"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," he said.
At least three other Democrats did not support Reid's position on the additional troops.
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