2 Key GOP Senators Challenge Bush On Iraq

Two prominent Republican senators have drafted a bill that would require President Bush to come up with a plan to dramatically narrow the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq.

The legislation, which represents a sharp challenge to Mr. Bush, was put forward Friday by Sens. John Warner and Richard Lugar and it came as the Pentagon acknowledged that a decreasing number of Iraqi army battalions are able to operate independently of U.S. troops.

"Given continuing high levels of violence in Iraq and few manifestations of political compromise among Iraq's factions, the optimal outcome in Iraq of a unified, pluralist, democratic government that is able to police itself, protect its borders, and achieve economic development is not likely to be achieved in the near future," the Warner-Lugar proposal said.

"They have performed reasonably well in the Baghdad operations of recent, but not, I think, up to the full expectations we had in January," Warner told CBS News.

Although the measure requires President Bush to present Congress with a plan to start a troop drawdown, it does not require the plan to be executed, reports CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod.

The measure would declare the initial congressional approval for the war "obsolete" and require the administration to report to Congress on plans to get combat troops out of the role of policing sectarian violence and starting to withdraw them.

Mr. Bush has asked Congress to hold off on demanding a change in the course of the war until September, when the top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, delivers a fresh assessment of its progress.

Warner, R-Va., and Lugar, R-Ind., are well regarded within Congress on defense issues. Warner was the longtime chairman of the Armed Services Committee before stepping down last year, while Lugar is the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

The Warner-Lugar proposal states that "American military and diplomatic strategy in Iraq must adjust to the reality that sectarian factionalism is not likely to abate anytime soon and probably cannot be controlled from the top."

Accordingly, Warner and Lugar say the president must draft a plan for U.S. troops that would keep them from "policing the civil strife or sectarian violence in Iraq" and focus them instead on protecting Iraq's borders, targeting terrorists and defending U.S. assets.

At the Pentagon, meanwhile, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the number of battle-ready Iraqi battalions able to fight on their own has dropped to a half-dozen from 10 in recent months despite heightened American training efforts.

Without providing numbers, the White House had acknowledged in its report to Congress on Thursday that not enough progress was being made in training Iraqi security forces — an issue that determines to a large extent when the United States may be able to reduce its forces there.

Pace, however, also said the readiness of the Iraqi fighting units was not an issue to be "overly concerned" about because the problem is partly attributable to the fact that the Iraq units are out operating in the field.

Appearing at a news conference with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Pace said that "as units operate in the field, they have casualties, they consume vehicles and equipment."

The Warner-Lugar proposal is the first major legislative challenge to Mr. Bush's Iraq policy endorsed by the two senators — and lent a more bipartisan imprint to congressional dissatisfaction with the war now in its fifth year.

Earlier this year, both Lugar and Warner expressed grave doubts about Mr. Bush's decision to send 30,000 extra troops to Iraq. But both have been reluctant to back binding legislation that would force the president's hand.

The legislation the pair is working on would direct Mr. Bush to present the new strategy to Congress by Oct. 16 and begin implementing it by Dec. 31.

The proposal also would seek to make Mr. Bush renew the authorization for war that Congress gave him in 2002. Many members contend that authorization — which led to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 — was limited to approval of deposing dictator Saddam Hussein and searching for weapons of mass destruction.