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WASHINGTON (Reuters): The situation in Iraq is dire and has hurt the United States's ability to take on a new fight elsewhere, but the war can be turned around with the planned deployment of more U.S. troops, top generals said on Tuesday
Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, President George W. Bush's choice to take command of the Iraq war, said progress would take time, even with the increase of more than 21,000 troops announced by Bush this month to halt spiralling violence.
“None of this will be rapid. The way ahead will be neither quick nor easy and there undoubtedly will be tough days,” Petraeus told the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.
“The situation in Iraq is dire. The stakes are high. There are no easy choices. The way ahead will be very hard,” added Petraeus, who won widespread praise for stabilizing the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in 2003.
“But hard is not hopeless.”
U.S. and coalition forces have failed to stem violence in Iraq more than three years after the invasion. Daily bombings and kidnappings plague Baghdad and other areas, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians.
Iraq and the war in Afghanistan also have harmed the U.S. military's ability to take on a new fight, top Marine Corps and Army officials told Congress on Tuesday, chipping away at the Pentagon's assurances that it could handle another conflict.
“I cannot say that I'm comfortable,” Gen. James Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.
“I will talk somewhat around it because we're in open session, but suffice it to say we have examined other war plans and our capability to respond to those plans and we see that we are lacking in some areas in our ability to do so,” he said.
The Army's chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, said he had “continued concerns about the strategic depth” of the Army and Lt. Gen. Stephen Speakes said the Army was not prepared for a conventional war.
“They have substantial equipping holes. They are not trained to the level they should be at and so therefore they are unready for high-intensity conflict,” he said.
The generals did not say where the U.S. military might need to fight next.
DOUBTS ON BUSH PLAN
Bush's plan faces widespread opposition on Capitol Hill, where the Democrats are now in power. A key Democrat, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, predicted a bipartisan Senate will overwhelmingly support a nonbinding resolution denouncing the troop boost.
Members of Bush's Republican party have also voiced doubts. “You talk about this being a race against the clock but I wonder if the clock has already run out,” Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine told Petraeus, who is to take over from Gen. George Casey.
But Petraeus said increasing a force already more than 130,000-strong would allow U.S. troops to take a more active role in providing security to Iraqis, especially in Baghdad.
Until now, U.S. forces put more emphasis in handing over security duties to Iraqi forces. But U.S. commanders have concluded that Iraqi troops were not ready in many cases, although Petraeus stressed the operation to secure Baghdad would be conducted jointly with Iraqi soldiers and police.
Petraeus said he had asked for all the extra U.S. troops, the bulk of whom will go to Baghdad, to be deployed as quickly as possible.
Despite their differences, senators from both parties praised Petraeus, who has led the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division and U.S. efforts to train Iraqi forces. He is expected to win Senate confirmation easily.
(additional reporting by Susan Cornwell)
