WASHINGTON — Spurning appeals for continued U.S. troop withdrawals, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq ran headlong into a central dispute of the war during a daylong session before Congress on Tuesday: whether deeper cuts would force the Iraqi government to finally take charge or lead it to collapse.
As expected, back-to-back Senate committee hearings spotlighting Army Gen. David H. Petraeus became a confrontation between two immovable forces. But there was no real decision at stake: President Bush is expected Thursday to endorse Petraeus' recommendation for a suspension of withdrawals in July, insisting that security gains over the last 15 months can lead toward a sustainable future, with continued U.S. help.
Speaking for hour after hour in his professorial monotone, Petraeus pressed that case, colliding repeatedly with an entrenched view among Democrats that Iraq's time to become more self-sufficient had arrived, and that troop withdrawals could help bring it about.
For Petraeus, the stakes of his second high-profile congressional appearance were not as steep as they were during his first seven months ago, when a prolonged period of intense violence nearly pushed Congress to seek a quick exit. The general's September performance is credited with calming the jitters. This time around, the four-star commander, again with an array of charts and graphs, made his case before lawmakers whose partisan positions had hardened during months of intense presidential campaigning, and he appeared to sway fewer opinions.
Democrat after Democrat, including the party's two remaining presidential contenders, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, questioned whether the costs of the strategy proposed by Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who also testified, were too high.
Petraeus, who notably stumbled in September when asked whether the war in Iraq was making America safer, this time insisted the U.S. had vital interests in the country that must be addressed to avoid risking its own safety and security.
"The seeds of a nascent democracy have been planted in an Arab country that was the cradle of civilization," Petraeus said. "And though the germination of those seeds has been anything but smooth, there has been growth."
Petraeus' case was complicated by the recent outbreak of Shiite-on-Shiite violence in southern Iraq, which has spilled over into once-peaceful neighborhoods in Baghdad. But he asserted that although the new fighting proved that security gains were "fragile and reversible," stability has improved markedly since his previous appearance before Congress.
