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Iraq bill a `charade,' says Bush adviser

Pat Meany marches during an anti-war protest in New York on Sunday. PHOTO: AP

US President George W. Bush's national security adviser said House Democrats will assure failure in Iraq and waste the sacrifice of US soldiers with legislation to remove troops.

Democratic critics said Bush has mishandled the four-year-old war, at tremendous cost to the US.

The House of Representatives this week plans to vote on a war spending bill that includes a troop withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1 next year. Lawmakers know Bush will veto the measure, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said on Sunday, making the exercise a "charade."

"If we do a premature withdrawal, then what we have is a situation where the Iraqi forces cannot handle the situation, which is the case now," Hadley said. "We have Iraq as a safe haven for terrorists who will destabilize the neighbors and attack us."

Under the House bill, the timeline would speed up if the Iraqi government cannot meet its own benchmarks for providing security, allocating oil revenues and other essential steps.

"They talk about us micromanaging. They've mismanaged the war so badly, they put the commanders in impossible positions," said Democratic Representative John Murtha, who heads a House subcommittee that controls defense spending.

Such a plan appears to have little chance of getting through the Senate, where Democrats have a slimmer majority. Even if it did, Bush has promised to veto it. But the White House is aggressively trying to stop it anyway, fearful of the message the world will hear if the House approves a binding bill to end the war.

Hadley said the legislation is arbitrary. It is not realistic, for example, for Iraqis to complete political reconciliation on a time line, he said.

"Our plea is, let's not go through this charade. Let's have Congress present to the president a responsible bill that gives General Petraeus and the men and women in uniform the funding they need and the flexibility they need to get the job done," Hadley said.

He was referring to General David Petraeus, the new US commander in Iraq.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, too, said on Sunday the House bill could make it impossible for military commanders to do their work.

"Frankly, as I read it, the House bill is more about withdrawal regardless of the circumstances on the ground than it is about trying to produce a positive outcome," Gates said.

Congressional Democrats, put in power in large part because of anti-war public sentiment, are trying to use their power of the purse to force action. So far, Iraq's leadership is struggling to meet the benchmarks that it has pledged to the US.

Hadley himself has questioned the ability of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to control violence in his country. In a memo disclosed last November, he said the story on the streets of Baghdad suggested Maliki "is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action."

On Sunday, Hadley offered a much different assessment.

"He has grown in office. He has grown in confidence. He has grown in competence. You can see it," he said.

The vote concerns a US$124 billion spending bill, US$95.5 billion of which is targeted for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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