[Peace-discuss] Lib Dem/Neocon

Mon May 1 04:36:56 CDT 2006

[A liberal Democrat blurts out what's been the Neocon/Israeli
fallback position for civil war/balkanization all along (i.e.,
if they couldn't get a secure client state in Baghdad). --CGE]

   Biden: Split Iraq Into 3 Different Regions
   Sen. Joseph Biden Proposes Partitioning Iraq 
   Into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni Regions
   By LIBBY QUAID

WASHINGTON May 1, 2006 (AP) - The senior Democrat on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee proposed Monday that Iraq
be divided into three separate regions Kurdish, Shiite and
Sunni with a central government in Baghdad.

In an op-ed essay in Monday's edition of The New York Times,
Sen. Joseph Biden. D-Del., wrote that the idea "is to maintain
a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each
ethno-religious group ... room to run its own affairs, while
leaving the central government in charge of common interests."

Biden and co-writer Leslie H. Gelb, former president of the
Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that President Bush "must
direct the military to design a plan for withdrawing and
redeploying our troops from Iraq by 2008 (while providing for
a small but effective residual force to combat terrorists and
keep the neighbors honest)."

The White House on Sunday defended its prewar planning against
criticism from an unlikely source -- former Secretary of State
Colin Powell.

In an interview broadcast Sunday in London, Powell revisited
the question of whether the U.S. had a large enough force to
oust Saddam Hussein and then secure the peace.

Powell said he advised now-retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who
developed and executed the 2003 Iraq invasion plan, and
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld "before the president
that I was not sure we had enough troops. The case was made,
it was listened to, it was considered. ... A judgment was made
by those responsible that the troop strength was adequate."

Current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was Bush's
national security adviser at the time of the invasion,
responded, "I don't remember specifically what Secretary
Powell may be referring to, but I'm quite certain that there
were lots of discussions about how best to fulfill the mission
that we went into Iraq.

"And I have no doubt that all of this was taken into
consideration. But that when it came down to it, the president
listens to his military advisers who were to execute the
plan," she told CNN's "Late Edition."

Rice said Bush "listened to the advice of his advisers and
ultimately, he listened to the advice of his commanders, the
people who actually had to execute the war plan. And he
listened to them several times," she told ABC's "This Week."

"When the war plan was put together, it was put together,
also, with consideration of what would happen after Saddam
Hussein was actually overthrown," Rice said.

In their essay Monday, Biden and Gelb wrote: "It is
increasingly clear that President Bush does not have a
strategy for victory in Iraq. Rather, he hopes to prevent
defeat and pass the problem along to his successor."

Powell was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the
1991 Gulf War and is known for his belief in deploying
decisive force with a clear exit strategy in any conflict.

"The president's military advisers felt that the size of the
force was adequate; they may still feel that years later. Some
of us don't. I don't," Powell said. "In my perspective, I
would have preferred more troops, but you know, this conflict
is not over."

"At the time, the president was listening to those who were
supposed to be providing him with military advice," Powell
said. "They were anticipating a different kind of immediate
aftermath of the fall of Baghdad; it turned out to be not
exactly as they had anticipated."

Rumsfeld has rejected criticism that he sent too few U.S.
troops to Iraq, saying that Franks and generals who oversaw
the campaign's planning had determined the overall number of
troops, and that he and Bush agreed with them. The
recommendation of senior military commanders at the time was
about 145,000 troops.