General: "Tough Days" Ahead In Iraq

The Army general who would carry out President George W. Bush's U.S. troop buildup in Iraq urged patience Tuesday and predicted "tough days" ahead.

"None of this will be rapid," Lt. Gen. David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The way ahead will be neither quick nor easy. There undoubtedly will be tough days."

Many in Congress, including some Republicans, oppose Mr. Bush's plan, which would send an extra 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq as part of a revised strategy for quelling sectarian violence in Baghdad and stabilizing the country. Before the buildup began in recent days, there were 132,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Mr. Bush nominated Petraeus to replace Army Gen. George Casey as the senior American commander in Iraq. Petraeus told the committee he had spoken to Casey in recent days and that Casey said he favored Mr. Bush's troop buildup.

According to a recent CBS News poll, two-thirds of Americans remain opposed to the president's plan for sending additional U.S. troops to Iraq. And 72 percent believe he should seek congressional approval for the troop increase.

Sen. Carl Levin, a Democrat, chairman of the committee and a leading critic of Mr. Bush's Iraq policy, pressed Petraeus on whether the flow of additional U.S. troops could be halted in midstream if the Iraqi government failed to meet its commitment to provide thousands more Iraqi troops.

"It could," Petraeus replied. Earlier he said there were no "specific conditions" the Iraqis must meet in order to keep the flow of U.S. forces moving. The last of five additional U.S. brigades are scheduled to arrive in the Iraqi capital in May; the first got there just days ago.

Petraeus said that in the event the Iraqis did not meet their commitments, he would consult with Defense Secretary Robert Gates on how to respond.

In his opening statement, Petraeus, 54, painted a grim picture of conditions in Iraq.

"The situation in Iraq is dire," he said. "The stakes are high. There are no easy choices. The way ahead will be very hard. ... But hard is not hopeless."

Famous for challenging 20-year-old solders to push-up contests and winning, Petraeus has a nearly perfect resume for the position of commander of multi-national forces in Iraq, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. He commanded the 101st Airborne in the initial invasion and was in charge of training Iraqi security forces.

Petraeus is considered a shoo-in to win Senate confirmation. Devoted early in the war to trying to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis, Petraeus later wrote the Pentagon manual on how to tackle insurgencies. He also previously supported expanding U.S. forces in the region.

Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the committee and a leading proponent of Mr. Bush's troop buildup plan, asked Petraeus how long he thought the U.S. buildup could be sustained.

"I am keenly aware of the strain" on the Army and Marine Corps, Petraeus said, adding that he welcomes Mr. Bush's proposal to increase the size of the land forces over the coming five years.

Asked by McCain how soon he thought he would know whether the new strategy was working, Petraeus said, "We would have indicators at the least during the late summer." As currently planned, he said, the last of the five additional U.S. Army brigades would be ready to fight in Baghdad by the end of May.

Several committee members noted that Petraeus recently oversaw the writing of a new Army manual on how to counter an insurgency. Sen. Edward Kennedy asked him why an extra 21,500 troops would make a significant difference.

Petraeus replied that the important factor was how extra troops are used, not their numbers. Their main focus, he said, will be on securing the civilian population of the capital rather than killing insurgents.

Kennedy, D-Mass., asked how long the extra troops would remain in Iraq.

"I don't know what the time limitation is," Petraeus replied, adding that it would be reasonable to give the Iraqi government more time to gain its political footing and to make the tough decisions needed to quell sectarian violence.

Casey said last week that the new U.S. troops might be able to begin leaving as early as late summer.

Petraeus has held a wide range of responsibilities during his 32 years in the Army, including in Bosnia, Germany, Italy and more recently in Iraq.

He told the Senate committee that he believes ethnic divisions in Iraq are not as severe as in Bosnia, where U.S. and NATO forces intervened in the 1990s to stop a civil war. He noted, however, that Iraq's divisions got worse in 2006.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Warner and two other Republicans announced legislation Monday denouncing the increase, as Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives drafted what they called "strategic benchmarks" for the war.

"How much louder — and how much clearer — does the opposition to his plan need to be before the president will begin to listen and respond to the voices of the American people, the generals and a bipartisan majority of Congress?" said Kennedy.

Kennedy and other lawmakers on the Democratic-led Armed Services Committee are expected to ask Petraeus whether he thinks the added troops will make a difference in Iraq; critics of the plan contend ground commanders were not clamoring for more troops.

Warner, a former Navy secretary and Republican defense hawk who chaired the panel until this year, is likely to provide political cover for members wary of the war plan but reluctant to embarrass a president from their own party. His resolution — backed by Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Norm Coleman and Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson — would say the Senate "disagrees with the plan to augment our forces" and the president should consider options that would achieve "strategic goals" with fewer than 21,500 troops.

The resolution is similar to one offered last week by Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel along with two Democrats, Carl Levin and Joseph Biden.

"I feel ever so strongly that the American GI was not trained, not sent over — certainly not by resolution of this institution — to be placed in the middle of a fight between the Sunni and the Shiite and the wanton, incomprehensible killing that's going on at this time," Warner told reporters Monday.

Since Mr. Bush announced his plan on Jan. 10, Congress has been deeply split on how to react. Senate and House Democratic leaders back the resolution drafted by Hagel, Levin and Biden. That measure probably will be voted on by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday and sent to the floor in coming days, where Republican leaders have promised a filibuster, a delaying tactic of open-ended debate that can be stopped only by a vote of 60 of the 100 Senate members. The Democrats would need the votes of nine Republicans to stop debate.