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Clinton in iraq afghanistan questions bush Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20031129/1053287.asphttp://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20031129/1053287.asp
IRAQ
Clinton says, 'Stay the course'
By DOUGLAS TURNER
News Washington Bureau Chief
11/29/2003
WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday the United States "must stay the course" in both Afghanistan and Iraq and called for more military personnel to finish the job.
The New York Democrat has spent two event-filled days meeting soldiers, leaders and citizens in Afghanistan and Iraq, and she spoke in a telephone interview from Kuwait.
"We have to exert all of our efforts militarily, but the outcome (in Iraq) is not assured," she said.
Clinton said it is still an open question whether the Bush administration can make the transition in Iraq from a war zone to an independent, representative government. In an interview with the Associated Press, she called for United Nations assistance in the process.
The morale of the troops, she said, "is very high," but she said the military personnel with whom she spoke in meetings and during "two turkey dinners" wanted to know "how the people at home feel about what we are doing."
" "Americans are wholeheartedly proud of what you are doing,' " Clinton said she replied, " "but there are many questions at home about the (Bush) administration's policies.' "
Clinton is on an official congressional tour of the war zones with another member of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.
Clinton and Reed, who left Washington on Tuesday, met with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai in Karzai's presidential palace in Kabul.
"I left Afghanistan feeling very positive about what our military personnel had accomplished there, but I am not very confident that we have adequate forces to accomplish the many missions we have been asked to handle," Clinton said.
Clinton's trip to Iraq was overshadowed by President Bush's quick visit to Baghdad Airport on Thanksgiving. Asked to comment, Clinton said, "It's a positive for the commander in chief to visit the troops in the field."
Arriving in Baghdad on Friday, Clinton met with L. Paul Bremer III, the top U.S. civilian official in Iraq, and with Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior military official there.
Bremer has been criticized for dismissing the Iraqi army and for failing to work more effectively with Iraq's majority Shiite Muslim community, especially Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani. He has criticized the administration's plan for granting more power to the American-appointed governing council.
While declining to comment directly on Bremer's performance, Clinton said, "The administration didn't fully appreciate what they would be encountering in Iraq," although many members of the Bush administration had been preoccupied for years with former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein.
"Now we're playing catch-up," she said.
Clinton said she was "moved and inspired" by the gritty courage of uniformed American men and women in both difficult theaters.
But she and Reed said the Pentagon needs to speed the delivery of more body armor for American troops and deployment of the armored version of the Humvee truck.
A Reed amendment to the defense budget bill requires the Pentagon to send 318 armored Hummers to Iraq. The Senate's leadership killed a Reed bill that would expand the size of the Army by 10,000.
"There is no question we need a larger Army," Reed said, to deal with the problems in both Afghanistan and Iraq, sentiments Clinton said she shared.
Today, Clinton aides said, she and Reed travel from Kuwait back into Iraq to meet with more troops in Kirkuk, a northern oil center.
The Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, employing aggressive tactics, have recently restored Kirkuk to order, including the installation of a 2,200-member Iraqi police force.
Earlier in an interview with the Associated Press, Clinton and Reed said the Bush administration needs to work harder to bring a more broad-based international coalition to Iraq.
Both said the expense and political burden in administering Iraq would be made easier with the U.N.'s stamp of legitimacy and help in transferring power to Iraqis.
"I'm a big believer that we ought to internationalize this, but it will take a big change in our administration's thinking," the former first lady said. "I don't see that it's forthcoming."
e-mail: dturner@buffnews.com
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