Pelosi Offers Glum War Assessment after Iraq Trip

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Pelosi Offers Glum War Assessment after Iraq Trip

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

The Washington Post - Jan 30, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001085.html?nav=rss_world

Pelosi Offers Glum War Assessment Following Iraq Trip

By Bill Brubaker
Washington Post Staff Writer

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) today offered a glum assessment
of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that a trip to those
nations last week left her discouraged, even though U.S. military
personnel have performed "excellently."

"It's been nearly four years since we went to war in Iraq, and four
years later there is still no end in sight," Pelosi said she concluded
after meeting with U.S. service members and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki.

Of her trip to Kabul, Pelosi said at a mid-afternoon news conference on
Capitol Hill: "Sadly, the war in Afghanistan is far from over. Our
troops have been on the front lines for more than five years, but in
some ways Afghanistan has been a forgotten war."

Pelosi spoke as Congress is debating competing resolutions that oppose
Bush's plan to send 21,500 new troops to Baghdad and Anbar province, an
insurgent stronghold in western Iraq. Most senators oppose the troop
increase.

Her comments also came as Adm. William J. Fallon told the Senate Armed
Services Committee today that "time is running out" for Iraq's
government to demonstrate its commitment to reducing violence in the
country. Fallon, speaking at a hearing on his nomination as the new
commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said American military
operations will fail without such a commitment.

Pelosi said she returned from Baghdad convinced that moving troops out
of Iraq is the best way to bring stability to the region, a view that
puts her sharply at odds with the Bush administration.

"In a matter of months -- one way or another -- we must begin
redeployment of our troops and change the mission" of the U.S. military
in Iraq, Pelosi said.

She also met in Pakistan with President Pervez Musharraf and in
Afghanistan with President Hamid Karzai. She was joined on the trip by
six House members, including Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), who chairs the Foreign
Affairs Committee.

The meeting with Musharraf came after the House passed legislation that
would link U.S. military aid to Pakistan's commitment to combating
Taliban guerrillas. The radical Islamic Taliban movement was driven
from power in Afghanistan by U.S.-backed forces in November 2001, and a
number of its leaders reportedly have taken refuge in border areas
inside Pakistan, as have leaders of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

In Kabul, Pelosi said her delegation met with representatives of NATO
countries that also have a military presence in Afghanistan.

"We conveyed to our NATO partners that they must provide their fair
share of additional troops, which are necessary to defeat the Taliban,"
she said. "We have conveyed to them [that] the nations of Europe and
elsewhere must play a bigger role in the effort to enhance the
authority of the central government, improve security, expand economic
opportunity. That must be a priority."

Pelosi said she went to Iraq, where more than 3,000 U.S. troops have
been killed, looking for hopeful signs.

"Many of us went there opposed to the escalation," she said. "All of us
went there hopeful that we would see [evidence of] the political and
diplomatic initiatives that are necessary to help our military. There
was no evidence of any political or diplomatic initiatives worthy of
the sacrifice" of U.S. service personnel.

"That, to me, was the most disappointing aspect of the trip," Pelosi
said.

© 2007 The Washington Post Company

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