Senators on Both Sides See Need for More Troops in Iraq

By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 - Senior senators of both parties urged the Bush administration today to send thousands more American troops to Iraq and said that many billions more dollars were needed to stabilize and rebuild that country and Afghanistan.

Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who was in Baghdad the day the United Nations headquarters was bombed, said ``at least another division,'' about 18,000 American troops, was needed.

``Time is not on our side,'' he added.

Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, put the need at 40,000 to 60,000 troops, a substantial increase over the current 139,000.

And Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who accompanied Senator McCain on his fact-finding trip, said that while the troop level in Iraq was sufficient, billions of dollars of additional spending was required there and in Afghanistan.

``I am a fiscal conservative and we're in debt,'' Mr. Graham said on Fox News Sunday, ``but the infrastructure needs in Afghanistan and Iraq are billions. We are underestimating the cost of this conflict, and we in the House and the Senate need to appropriate a lot more money.''

Their comments came after a particularly bloody week in Iraq, marked by the bombing Tuesday at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed 23 people and mounting fears of additional such terrorist attacks.

L. Paul Bremer, the chief American civilian administrator in Iraq, noted that ``scores'' of foreign terrorists are pouring into Iraq, adding that it was ``plausible'' to think that they were viewing it as a place to make ``a last stand'' against the United States.

Asked about one recent estimate that up to 500,000 coalition troops might be needed in Iraq, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, ``No, I don't agree.'' American forces there, he said on CBS Face the Nation, were ``supremely confident in their ability to deal with the threat.'' But while the military was ``stretched thin'' around the globe, the general added, it could send more troops if commanders on the ground in Iraq made the request.

The Bush administration has said that it hopes other countries will provide more troops for Iraq but sees no need to send more Americans now.

Mr. Bremer, speaking on the Fox news show, said: ``It's not a question of more troops; it's a question of being effective with our intelligence, of getting more Iraqis to help us.''

The quality of intelligence being offered by Iraqis had risen sharply, he added. In addition, he said, nearly 60,000 Iraqis have been recruited to help in police, border-guard and other security units.

The legislators cautioned that failure to do more now could cause the costs of engagement in Iraq to rise dramatically later.

``We either spend the money now, we make the sacrifices now, or we pay much greater later,'' said Senator Graham.

Senator McCain, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and a leading Republican voice in foreign affairs, said the coalition needs ``to spend a whole lot more money'' to restore basic services in Iraq, or risk facing ``a very serious situation.''

Senator Biden was sharply critical of the Bush administration's reluctance to support a multinational United Nations force for Iraq, and he scoffed at its assurances that scores of other countries were sending troops. For now, he said, those countries were contributing an average 400 troops each.

He predicted that U.S. forces would be in Iraq for three to five years, at a cost well over $100 billion. But Mr. Bremer, while praising the U.N. humanitarian contribution, said it was ``hard for me to see how the U.N. itself can play a further military role'' in Iraq.

He and General Myers said the growing numbers of Iraqis in security positions had eased the demands on coalition forces. Mr. Bremer acknowledged, however, that the trustworthiness of some of those Iraqis could be problematic. The possibility that Iraqi guards employed by the U.N played a part in the bombing there, he said, was ``certainly a working hypothesis - one of many.''