President Bush's nominee to be war czar said yesterday that conditions in Iraq have not improved significantly despite the influx of U.S. troops in recent months and predicted that, absent major political reform, violence will continue to rage over the next year.
Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, tapped by Bush to serve as a new high-powered White House coordinator of the war, told senators at a confirmation hearing that Iraqi factions "have shown so far very little progress" toward the reconciliation necessary to stem the bloodshed. If that does not change, he said, "we're not likely to see much difference in the security situation" a year from now.
Lute's dour assessment mirrored the views of U.S. intelligence officials, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a closed session last month that trends in Iraq remain negative and that the prospect for political movement by the nation's feuding Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds appears marginal. The secret intelligence conclusions were disclosed during yesterday's hearing by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and confirmed by a Republican official...
Lute, a career Army officer who serves as the operations officer at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been a vocal internal advocate of more political measures, arguing that there is no military solution to Iraq. At his hearing yesterday, Lute acknowledged that during a review of U.S. policy on Iraq last winter, he had privately expressed skepticism of Bush's "surge" proposal unless matched with more robust efforts by the Iraqis and other U.S. agencies.
"Where are we today?" he asked. "Not where any of us would like."
But he sounded open to other ideas if the troop buildup does not succeed, telling Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, that withdrawing some U.S. forces should be considered. Lute agreed that a large presence in Iraq could reinforce a "dependency syndrome."..
