Senators Hit Iraq Policy

By Paul Richter

May 19, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators exhorted the Bush administration Tuesday to change how it deals with Iraq, arguing that officials must do more to internationalize the occupation and should consider moving up elections and the hand-over of sovereignty.

At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, members of both parties said the United States needed to consider bolder actions to build confidence among Iraqis, Americans and people of other nations.

“There seems to be a little bit of a lack of imagination here,” Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the ranking minority member, told Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. “We’ve got to sort of change the mind-set of the American people [and] the Iraqi people.”

As the two officials acknowledged their concern about polls suggesting Iraqis are turning against the U.S.-led occupation, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), the committee chairman, urged the administration to accelerate negotiations for a U.N. Security Council resolution. That resolution, expected before the United States is scheduled to transfer sovereignty June 30, would give international legitimacy to the new government, he said.

Lugar suggested moving up the transfer date and said U.S. officials also should consider moving up two rounds of elections that are set for January and December 2005.

Armitage assured the senators that “we’re all on the same page” on giving other nations a say in Iraq. “Whether we’re going fast enough and imaginative enough, I don’t know,” he added.

He said U.S. officials had considered providing oversight through an international “contact group” that might consist of the United States, Iraqis and the other permanent members of the Security Council. The European Union also might be added to that group, he said.

But the administration conceded that uncertainty would continue on some issues. Wolfowitz said he could not estimate how long a large U.S. force would be required in Iraq.

“The course of war is simply not something one can determine,” Wolfowitz said, adding that a “very substantial” Iraqi security force would be assisting by the end of 2004.

Pressed on how much additional reconstruction aid Iraq would need from the United States, Wolfowitz sought to reassure the lawmakers.

“We don’t think there will be any need for a supplemental of the enormous kind that we had last year,” he said, referring to the $18.6-billion aid package approved in November. He added, however, that he assumed there would be “some kind of American economic assistance program in the future.”

Armitage said that of the $13.8 billion pledged to Iraq by international donors, only about $1 billion had been spent so far.

He said all of Iraq’s major creditors, with the exception of Russia, had agreed to substantially relieve the nation’s debts. But he added that the final negotiations hadn’t been completed.

Although Wolfowitz and Armitage stressed their view that the reconstruction was making progress, they acknowledged that the United States had made mistakes in the war effort.

The administration, Wolfowitz said, underestimated the insurgency and went too far in removing members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party from public-sector jobs. Armitage said the U.S. should have reached out more effectively to tribal leaders.

Senators of both parties said they and their constituents were anxious about the course of the campaign in Iraq amid the unpleasant developments of recent months.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) said some residents of his state believed that the United States was acting like “Uncle Sugar,” doling out billions while other countries with stakes in the outcome were doing far less.

“I just wonder if we’re not being as candid as we should be with the American people about what we’re into over there,” he said.

“We try to be candid,” Wolfowitz responded. “Things change.”