WASHINGTON — A senator and U.S. representative from Southwest Georgia had differing takes Thursday night on President George Bush’s endorsement of reducing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq.
Speaking from the Oval Office in a prime-time address, Bush said he has ordered the gradual reduction of troops.
The president said he accepted recommendations from Army Gen. David Petraeus that would gradually alter the U.S. military’s mission in Iraq from a peacekeeping force to a limited, training-based platform for Iraqi security forces.
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss’s office said Thursday that the Moultrie Republican will support the president so long as he fulfills his obligation to redeploy the troops once their mission is met.
“He said to the president, ‘Look, if you advocate for an increase in troops, I’ll support you, but my support is conditional on our troops having a specific mission and when that mission is completed that they be redeployed,’ ” Chambliss spokesperson Lindsay Mabry said before the televised speech. “It appears they’ve done a good job on that mission and he said we need to give that strategy time to work and come back and hear what General Petraeus has to say.”
U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Albany, kept with his party’s line Thursday night, calling the president’s speech vague.
“I agree that our men and women in uniform have done all that has been asked of them. ... We have a solemn responsibility when we ask our men and women to go into harm’s way that we give them a clearly defined mission, and that hasn’t been done by the president,” Bishop said.
Bishop said that a report expected out today evaluating the Iraqi government’s progress in meeting political and security benchmarks is expected to reveal that 15 out of the 18 goals have not been met.
“We’ve asked them to step up to the plate to assume responsibility and security of their own people and they haven’t done that,” Bishop said.
A member of the House Committee on Appropriations, Bishop said that the strain the war is putting on the national budget is forcing massive cuts to domestic programs.
“This war costs $10 billion a month and the president wants us to tighten our belts here domestically and is threatening to veto the appropriations bill because it’s $22 billion more than he wants to spend on domestic programs, all while we’ve spent more than $500 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan and the meter is still ticking,” Bishop said.
During his speech, Bush said that the surge, which was fully completed in June, appeared to have been working, especially in the al-Qaida stronghold Al-Anbar province, which he said critics had labled as un-winable.
Tuesday, Chambliss, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a statement after Petraeus and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker testified before Congress about the status of the military and diplomatic efforts in Iraq.
“While the situation in Iraq continues to be complex, it is an indisputable fact that the increase in troops has enhanced the security environment on the ground,” Chambliss said, according to the release. “Our military has worked relentlessly under the direction of General Petraeus to pursue the enemy, disrupt Al-Qaida and uncover hidden weapons. However, to sustain this progress and continue improving security and political reconciliation, we need to give our full support to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker in their current efforts in Iraq.”
Bishop said that while violence in that province may have declined since more than 4,000 Marines were sent into the area, the increase in troops has simply displaced the violence to other provinces.
“It’s somewhat like exterminating rodents,” Bishop said. “When you run them out of one part of the house, they go to another area. Essentially that is what is happening in Iraq; that is the challenge we’re facing.”
The Albany Herald
