NYT : Gates Sees a ‘Protracted’ Stay for Troops

Gates Sees a ‘Protracted’ Stay for Troops

By BRIAN KNOWLTON | September 16, 2007

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 — Two days after saying he hoped American forces in Iraq might be reduced to 100,000 by the end of next year, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today that American troops were likely to remain in that country for a “protracted period.”

He also said he would recommend a presidential veto if Congress passes a Democratic proposal to limit the time troops can spend in Iraq.

But Mr. Gates emphasized in two television interviews that American troops would play an increasingly circumscribed role. “The idea is that we would have a much more limited role in Iraq for some protracted period of time as a stabilizing force, a force that would be a fraction of the force that we have there now,” focusing on border security, fighting terrorists and training Iraqi security personnel, he said.

Mr. Gates said that he was talking about “a relatively small number compared to what we have today,” but that it was far too soon to nail down precise levels; much would depend on whether there was no unraveling of the progress reported last week by General David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq.

The defense secretary also said the United States could deal with Iranian interference in Iraq without attacking into Iran; and that the United States was intently watching Syria and North Korea after reports of possible nuclear cooperation by Pyongyang with Damascus. Such cooperation, Mr. Gates said, “would be a real problem.”

Democrats, forcefully rejecting President Bush’s new plan for a gradual troop drawdown as tantamount to an “endless” occupation of Iraq, are preparing this week to advance a new, constraining proposal. It would force the Bush administration to give individual soldiers more time away from the battlefield.

But Mr. Gates said the proposal, while “well-intentioned,” would leave the Pentagon with “extremely difficult” problems in managing its forces.

“We’d have to look at potentially making greater use of the Guard and Reserve,” Gates said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We’d have to cobble together units” and to withdraw some units before others were able to replace them. He said the Pentagon would face a management nightmare: having to track the service in Iraq of each soldier.

Mr. Gates had raised the possibility on Friday that American troop levels in Iraq could be brought down to 100,000 by the end of 2008. That did not contradict Mr. Bush’s plan to cut back from the 169,000 troops now in Iraq to perhaps 130,000 by July; Mr. Gates was looking, tentatively, to a farther horizon.

One Democrat, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said today that an American troop drawdown could be accelerated if NATO forces or other allied troops agreed to a larger role in training Iraqi troops.

But if the proposal from Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, to give troops more time away from Iraq should pass, Mr. Gates said, he would recommend that Mr. Bush veto it. It would require that troops be given at least as much time at home as spent on their latest Iraq deployment — a shift from current standards of 12 months at home for every 15 served.

The latest developments made it clear that even if Mr. Bush gained some time by embracing the report and recommendations of General Petraeus, his running battle with Democrats over the war was no nearer a truce.

Mr. Webb’s proposal and its exact impact on troop availability are likely to be hotly debated this week as the Senate resumes consideration of a major defense policy bill.

Up to now, the Democrats’ hands have been tied. Joined by two independents, the Democrats control the Senate by a bare majority of 51, well short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate, let alone the 67 required to override a presidential veto. In a series of antiwar votes this year, the Democrats have at times reached 56 votes with the help of a handful of Republicans.

Some Democrats believe that the Webb bill, which has support among military families, and from some senior military officers concerned about strains on the troops, may be their best chance yet to entice wavering Republicans.

“It has a good chance of passing,” said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “I think we have a good chance to get to the 60 votes to call for a change in policy.”

The Republicans’ problem was apparent today when Senator John Cornyn, a conservative Texas Republican, was asked on CNN how he would vote on Mr. Webb’s proposal. “I’m concerned about deployments, lengthy deployments,” and their effect on military families, he said — while declining to say how he would vote.

A Democratic presidential hopeful, Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, defended the Webb approach as a least-bad solution, saying that the failure to provide relief to a severely stretched military would have “absolutely disastrous” consequences.

“If you don’t figure out how to get these folks some time home, you are going to break, break this military,” he said on Fox.

In a vote in July, the Webb proposal drew 56 votes, 4 short of the 60 needed to prevent a filibuster. Since then, Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, who had been recuperating from a brain hemorrhage, has returned.

Mr. Webb said that two Republicans, Senators George V. Voinovich of Ohio and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, had expressed interest in his bill. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina are also studying it.

One Republican who has not wavered is Senator John McCain of Arizona. “To pull the plug at this particular time, I believe, would be disastrous for the future of this country,” he said on “Meet the Press” on NBC.

The Bush administration has argued that its new plan to withdraw 5,700 troops by year’s end and send home five of 20 combat brigades by July was made possible by some security gains, particularly in Anbar Province and Baghdad and that an earlier departure would have calamitous effects. Democrats insisted today that the Republicans were misrepresenting their efforts.

“We’re not talking about abandoning Iraq,” Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts said on NBC. “We’re talking about changing the mission.”

Mr. Kerry argued, too, that the Iraq war was tying down and weakening American forces, making them less able not more to deal with any Iranian threat.

General Petraeus was asked on Fox about American complaints that Iranians are providing highly lethal weapons and training to Iraqi insurgents.

“We believe that we know where some of the training camps are,” the general said, and where weapons were coming from. But he declined to say whether he had been involved in weighing possible attacks on those sites.

Mr. Gates, too, played down speculation that the Bush administration might be contemplating more forceful action against Iran.

“We always say all options are on the table,” Mr. Gates said, “but clearly the diplomatic and economic approach is the one we’re pursuing.”