Senators tell Bush to back off

The Baghdad government opposes more U.N. supervision.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican senators warned Thursday of a bruising political fight if the White House presses ahead with plans to sign broad agreements setting out the U.S. relationship with Iraq ahead of the presidential election this fall.

“I have to say to you, and I’m saying to the administration now, ‘You aren’t going to get this done,’” Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, told Bush administration officials called before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to answer questions about the proposed pacts. “You’re not going to get this done between now and the election.”

The administration wants to sign separate agreements establishing the legal framework for U.S. force operations and outlining the wider U.S. relationship and responsibility for a state that is sovereign but not yet able to stand independent of its U.S. patron.

The pacts would replace a United Nations mandate in place since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The current U.N. authorization expires this year, and the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad opposes further U.N. supervision.

Democrats say the White House is trying to tie the hands of the next president, who may be a Democrat who wants flexibility to withdraw forces faster. The Bush administration denies that and says the deals would not lock in troop levels or U.S. military commitments.

Senators suggested the administration rethink its plans and perhaps seek a temporary extension of the U.N. mandate or another way to postpone the debate until after the November election.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said the administration at least ought to do more to explain the deals and ease concerns among both parties.

“People are going to be making political points over something that shouldn’t be a matter of politics,” Coleman said. “I can hear the debate. I’ve already heard some today.”

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he sees no chance that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq will drop to 100,000 by the end of the year, guaranteeing a heavy American military presence as the war grinds into its sixth year to the end of the Bush presidency.

Bush said Gen. David Petraeus, his top commander in Iraq, can take “all the time he needs” to consider further withdrawals after the latest round of cutbacks is completed in July. In the meantime, Petraeus will continue what, until Thursday, had been secret visits to Middle Eastern countries to try to curb the influx of foreign fighters into Iraq.

With 285 days remaining in his presidency, Bush set the course of the war in a speech following two days of testimony before a skeptical Congress by Petraeus and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker.

Bush said that after the troop withdrawals, which already have been announced, end in July, he would give Petraeus 45 days to evaluate the effects of the drawdown. That would be followed by an indefinite period to reassess U.S. troop strength in Iraq, where new flare-ups of extremist violence are threatening to undercut security gains.

Bush argued that last year’s troop buildup had succeeded in reducing violence, tamping down al-Qaida in Iraq and allowing normal daily activities to resume in many areas. Because of that progress, Bush said, an already planned reduction in troops can be completed in July.