Hagel, Two Democrats Shape Resolution Against Bush Plan

By Jake Thompson, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

Jan. 17–WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Hagel, one of the Bush administration’s strongest critics on Iraq, said that he was the principal author behind a bipartisan resolution that was likely to be introduced today opposing President Bush’s plan to boost U.S. troops in Iraq.

“It was predominantly my hand in this,” the Nebraska Republican said today.

Hagel said he wrote much of the resolution over the weekend, working with two leading Democrats, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden of Delaware and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin.

Hagel said he hoped that the resolution would help trigger a national debate about Iraq and “how to unwind” the U.S. military presence — not increase it.

“This country has not had a national debate on Iraq,” he said. “And we are dangerously divided.”

The anti-escalation resolution won’t catalog “all the problems and blunders” of Iraq, nor call for a troop withdrawal, Hagel said.

“The American people are more concerned about how do we get out of this,” he said.

The move by Hagel, a possible 2008 presidential candidate, puts him at the forefront of congressional Republicans opposed to escalating the U.S. military presence.

Many Democrats have objected to Bush’s plan, and a few Republicans have voiced doubts. But the resolution Hagel co-wrote goes further than any of his GOP colleagues have thus far.

Hagel said he was motivated partly by concern that if the president’s new “surge” plan to add 21,500 troops fails to turn things around, public opposition could sharply worsen and force the United States to make a hasty retreat, similar to the final exit from Vietnam in 1975.

“We need to head that off and make sure that doesn’t happen,” Hagel said.

He noted that public opinion polls taken after Bush announced his new Iraq strategy already indicated opposition from two-thirds of Americans who were surveyed.

“They have lost confidence in the administration’s handling of Iraq,” he said.

Hagel’s move prompted the White House to summon other Republican lawmakers this morning in an apparent attempt to urge them not to support the resolution.

How many Democrats or Republicans might support the resolution is not certain. Hagel said perhaps 10 Senate Republicans have publicly raised some concerns about Bush’s plan, but he didn’t know whether they would join him.

But it is time for Congress, a co-equal branch of the government, to debate and become more involved in the U.S. efforts in Iraq, Hagel said.

“We have let the country down,” Hagel said.

The idea for a resolution came out of a discussion Hagel had about three weeks ago with Biden, who has been to Iraq several times and was preparing to take over the chairmanship of the foreign relations committee.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said today that a number of Democrats had been involved in helping draft the resolution.

“It’s important that this not just simply be an opportunity to bash the White House,” he said, “but that it raise serious concerns about the plan.”

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Copyright (c) 2007, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

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