Hadley sees progress by September in Iraq

Washington Times:

Stephen J. Hadley yesterday said he expects the situation on the ground in Iraq to improve by September and, therefore, rejected a proposal from two Republican senators that calls for starting to draft redeployment plans for American forces before then.

Mr. Hadley was asked on CBS' "Face the Nation" by host Bob Schieffer whether "the situation in Iraq is going to look any different" when Gen. David M. Petraeus delivers his progress report on the surge to Congress in September.

"I think it will," Mr. Hadley replied. "I think we will have had two additional months of our security strategy going forward; now, since the last several weeks, with a full complement of forces.

"We think we will see progress on the security side. We hope we will see the bottom-up kind of reconciliation" among Iraqis, he said. "But the point is that Congress set a schedule, which basically said we need to do a review in September."

The White House and some Republican lawmakers are asking for patience on Iraq until September, arguing that a surge of American forces into Baghdad and other areas has only been fully implemented for a few weeks.

However, a proposal by two Republicans — Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, ranking member on the Armed Services Committee — would require the administration to deliver a plan by October outlining how American forces could be moved away from a combat role in Iraq.

Although Mr. Hadley said the administration could not accept the Lugar-Warner plan, he did praise the senators and left the door open to considering their recommendations in the fall.

"They've done a useful service in indicating the kinds of things that we should be thinking about," he said. "But the time to begin that process is September. The opening shot really ought to be to heard from the commanders on the ground who can make an assessment of where we are in our current strategy."

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I guess you should always have someone planning in the event of failure, but it seems Lugar and Warner are going beyond the call of duty in that regard by suggesting we bypass the possibility of success. They seem to have their ears covered and eyes closed to the progress on the ground in Iraq or they think that progress want matter. What ever their thoughts they need to present evidence to support them, since it is not only not self evident, but contra to the facts being reported on the current situation.