"Democrats Push a Tactic to Shift Iraq Plan"

NY Times:

Now that President Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus have charted their course for the Iraq war, Democrats in the Senate say one of their proposals aimed at shifting the president’s strategy is finally close to winning enough Republican support for a real chance at being approved. It would require that troops spend as much time at home as on their most recent tours overseas before being redeployed.

The proposal, by Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, has strong support from top Democrats, who say that the practical effect would be to add time between deployments and force General Petraeus to withdraw troops on a substantially swifter timeline than the one he laid out before Congress this week, and that it would protect troops from serving protracted and debilitating deployments.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware and a candidate for president, called the proposal the “easiest way” for his Republican colleagues to change the war strategy on the same day that the Bush administration released a mixed report on the Iraqi government’s progress toward various goals.

The Pentagon sought on Friday to challenge the Democrats’ approach, with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates saying at a Pentagon news conference that it would only create further hardships for the military, including the prospect of even lengthier tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Gates called the proposal “well-intentioned,” but said it might require extending tours of units already in Iraq, calling up additional National Guard and Reserve troops, and making other adjustments that “would further stress the force and reduce its combat effectiveness.”

“The complexity of managing the flow of units, individuals and capabilities to two active combat theaters is enormous and does not lend itself to simplistic, or to simple, legislative prescriptions,” Mr. Gates said at a briefing with Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The cumulative effect of these kinds of things, we think, would, frankly, increase the risk to our men and women in uniform over there.”

Mr. Gates also said Friday that he hoped that it would be possible to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq to about 100,000 by the end of 2008, a target that officials have for months described as a White House goal, but one that would go well beyond the cuts announced this week by Mr. Bush. Mr. Gates repeated that goal in what appeared to be an effort to quiet critics who said the president’s speech on Thursday night left open the possibility that there would be more troops in Iraq next summer than before the start of the “surge” in January.

The president’s plan would reduce the number of combat brigades to 15 from 20 by mid-July 2008, and Mr. Gates said he hoped to reduce that number to 10 by the end of next year. But he also said that the additional reductions hinged on continued improvement in conditions in Iraq and that they had not been formally adopted as a goal. He said further assessments by General Petraeus would determine if the goal could be met.

The precise impact of Mr. Webb’s proposal is likely to be hotly debated next week as the Senate resumes its consideration of a major defense policy bill that Democrats will use to push a number of initiatives aimed at shifting the war strategy.

But none of those may have a better shot at winning the 60 votes needed to cut off debate than Mr. Webb’s plan, a back door approach that underscores the Democrats’ continuing struggle to have any real influence on the conduct of the war.

When it was last up for a vote in July, the proposal failed by 56 to 41, falling just four votes short. With the return of Senator Tim Johnson, Democrat of South Dakota, who had been recuperating from a brain hemorrhage, the Democrats need just three Republicans to join the six who supported the amendment in July.

And several Republicans who voted against the proposal last time said they were now reconsidering, including Senator George V. Voinovich of Ohio, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, who is running for re-election next year.

The Webb measure holds deep appeal for military service members and their families, and allows Democrats to present themselves as supporters of the troops, but not the war. Mr. Webb has a son in the Marine Corps in Iraq whose tour was extended because of the troop increase.

There were signs on Friday that Mr. Bush’s address might have succeeded in shifting some sentiment. The Washington Post’s editorial page, which has clung to a middle ground on the war, described Mr. Bush’s strategy as “the least bad plan” and one that would be “less risky than the alternatives.” Nielsen Media Research reported Friday night that the president’s speech drew a combined 28.8 million viewers across nine broadcast networks and cable channels.

The Pentagon’s opposition to the Webb measure could make it harder for Republican senators who voted against the plan in July to change their position. But Mr. Webb, in a telephone interview on Friday, said he believed that prospects had improved. “I had people like Senator Murkowski come to me even before the Petraeus testimony and say that she regretted that she had voted the other way,” he said, referring to Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who has repeated Democratic entreaties.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said that because the Webb proposal would apply to individual soldiers, not just units, the Pentagon would be forced to examine the deployment history of every soldier to ensure that each had been home long enough. That could force units with some soldiers who met the time limit and others who did not to be broken up, harming combat effectiveness, he added.

Current Pentagon policy calls for active-duty Army units to get a year at home for every 15 months deployed. Individual soldiers, because they might have been transferred from other units, could be sent back on a faster timetable. Even without the Webb amendment, Army officials have said they would have difficulty meeting current policy.