Petraeus recommends troop pause

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton today confronted Army Gen. David H. Petraeus about his recommendation to pause the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq, saying America was paying too high a cost for the open-ended military commitment.

Mrs. Clinton, who has pledged to start a pullout within 60 days if she is elected president, said that the ongoing deployment has sapped the U.S. military capabilities and that every time the war effort verges on success, “Iraqi leaders fail to deliver” political reconciliation.

“What condition would have to exist for you to recommend to the president that the present strategy is not working?” she asked at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “How are we to judge what the conditions should be?”

Gen. Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq, said analysis of the political and security situation in Iraq was not a “mathematical exercise.”

Earlier, he warned lawmakers at the hearing that “fragile and reversible” security gains from the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq would be shattered by Democrats’ pullout plans. He recommended a pause to troop reductions in July and an assessment period to decide how to proceed.

The general told Mrs. Clinton that U.S. commanders and Iraqi leaders would have to assess the activity of enemy forces and the capabilities of the Iraqi forces before determining whether to recommend more U.S. troop reductions.

Gen. Petraeus testified with Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker today as part of a war report mandated by the Democrat-led Congress.

Democrats pushed for a pullout strategy, citing some of the same conditions that Gen. Petraeus used to support continued engagement in Iraq, including the ever-present threat of renewed fighting.

They questioned the general and the ambassador about the slow pace of political reform by the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the oil-rich country’s failure to pay for the war or reconstruction.

The hearings also provided a platform for all three major presidential candidates to present their views on the Iraq war. Democratic front-runner Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois will have a chance to pose questions later today when the general and the ambassador appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

They appear tomorrow before House committees.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona said that the U.S. mission in Iraq is succeeding but that more time is needed to achieve the goal of a “peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state that poses no threat to its neighbors and contributes to the defeat of terrorists.”

“This success is within reach,” Mr. McCain said, emphasizing that he does not want to keep U.S. forces in Iraq “one minute longer than necessary.”

“We must continue to help the Iraqis protect themselves against the terrorists and the insurgents. We must press ahead against al Qaeda, the radical Shi’a militias and the Iranian-backed [fighters],” he said. “This means rejecting, as we did in 2007, the calls for a reckless and irresponsible withdrawal of our forces at the moment when they are succeeding.”

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said President Bush had failed to hold the Iraqi government accountable, resulting in the high price paid by U.S. troops and taxpayers. He said a pullout was the answer.

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