Senators question Iraq panel's blueprint for war policy

WASHINGTON -- Senators raised sharp questions Thursday about a special Iraq commission's recommendations for changing U.S. diplomatic and military strategies in the war, as the panel's leaders urged the Bush administration and Congress to urgently work out a new bipartisan approach.\nOne of the commission's co-chairmen, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., underscored the urgency of changing course in Iraq, where conditions were described as grave and deteriorating. He was asked at what point the situation there, if not corrected, will be hopeless.\n"Well, there certainly is that point, and we're perilously close to that point," he replied.\nHamilton and his co-chairman, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee one day after delivering their report on recommended changes to Iraq policy. Hamilton said that a new, more realistic and practical approach is needed.\n"That's a very tough policy problem, and in order for this to happen, it can't be pie in the sky, it can't be idealistic, it has to be pragmatic," he said. Later, he added, "We reject the idea that the situation is hopeless."\nMost senators broadly endorsed the commission's report, which made 79 recommendations for policy changes. Their skepticism focused mainly on two of the recommendations: a diplomatic approach to Iran and Syria, and an acceleration of the U.S. military's work to train and advise Iraqi forces.\nHamilton said it was essential for the White House and Congress to work together on this, and he criticized lawmakers for not having taken a stronger role in overseeing the Bush administration's war policies.\nSen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said the key question now is whether Bush will effectively implement a new policy.\n"We need the White House to become the 'Iraq Results Group,'" she said.\nBaker said Congress could play a key role in that regard.\n"If the Congress would come together behind supporting -- let's say utopianly -- all of the recommendations of this report, that would do a lot toward moving things downtown," Baker told the committee.\nMany in Congress have praised the group's report, which was eight months in the making. But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told Hamilton and Baker that he does not believe their approach will work. The panel called for a phase-out of the U.S. combat role by 2008 and rejected the idea of a short-term increase in the number of combat troops in Iraq.\nMcCain took issue with that approach, saying he did not agree with the Baker-Hamilton group's conclusion that the U.S. military does not have enough forces available to sustain a troop boost in Iraq.\n"There's only one thing worse than an over-stressed Army and Marine Corps, and that's a defeated Army and Marine Corps," said McCain, a Vietnam veteran and a 2008 Republican presidential hopeful. "I believe this is a recipe that will lead to our defeat sooner or later in Iraq."\nAs the pair appeared on Capitol Hill, Bush met at the White House with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a key Bush ally in Iraq. Speaking to reporters, Bush referred to this as a "difficult moment for America and Great Britain"