Lieberman on getting tough

September 27 2006

WASHINGTON -- A day after saying in a major campaign speech that "we must get tougher with the Iraqi political leadership," Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman met Tuesday with Iraq's president and had a pleasant conversation that ended with the two men agreeing progress is being made.

After the meeting, Lieberman appeared at a news conference with Talabani and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who, like Lieberman, has been a strong backer of the Iraq war.

"If anyone asks what progress has been made in Iraq as a result of American involvement, look at this man," Lieberman said. "He has taken the place of Saddam Hussein."

Not all senators were so encouraged after meeting with Talabani. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who attended the meeting, afterward sharply criticized U.S. policies and cited a lack of progress.

"The writing is on the wall and it doesn't say, `Mission accomplished,"' Clinton said.

While Talabani, a longtime fighter for Kurdish rights, is considered a significant political force, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has most of the executive authority to run the government. In Talabani's meeting with the senators, he said, "I expressed my concern that the media is only addressing the negative side."

Other senators who met with Talabani on Tuesday said they tried to press the president on the question of U.S. troops in Iraq. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., asked the Iraqi leader about reports that the White House would not have troops leave the country until Iraq's top officials asked them to go.

According to people familiar with the exchange, Levin asked Talabani if the president had specifically told him that.

"He did not directly answer," Levin said.

Lieberman and Talabani talked in general terms about strategy, and agreed that "talking about deadlines is bad policy."

The senator said in his Iraq policy speech Monday, "I believe it would be every bit as much of a mistake to stay there indefinitely, both for the Iraqis and for us, and I have consistently opposed an open-ended commitment of American troops."

As he did Monday, he again Tuesday criticized Democratic nominee Ned Lamont for supporting specific timelines for withdrawing U.S. troops.

At the Capitol, though, Lieberman would not specifically define what he meant by rejecting an open-ended commitment, saying his own goal "is not as neat as a deadline but a deadline is a deadly and disastrous alternative."

He said the U.S. could pull back "as soon as Iraqis are able to control their security and control their destiny" and that he had heard "an encouraging, progressive report by President Talabani, an honest report."

Lamont was in California on Tuesday for a 24-hour fundraising trip. George Jepsen, the chairman of the Lamont campaign, said Lieberman failed to say when and how the U.S. would leave Iraq, either in his speech Monday or in comments Tuesday.

"This is in many respects the central question: How do we decide to get out?" Jepsen asked.

Lieberman is being studiously vague, offering generalities about how the Iraqis might progress toward self-sufficiency, yet refusing to say how long he would keep the U.S. on the ground, Jepsen said.

"There is no there there. What's his end game, that we stay as long as it takes?" Jepsen asked. "If that's what it is, fine, then say it clearly."

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who proposed in June that Congress set a deadline of July 1, 2007, for withdrawing U.S. troops, issued a statement Tuesday condemning Lieberman's speech.

"We don't need misleading speeches. We don't need slogans. We need leaders who will tell it straight and stand up to this administration and say it's time to change course. Ned Lamont is providing that kind of leadership," Kerry said.

Lieberman reiterated Tuesday that "our commitment is not indefinite. We need to see they're making their best effort - and he is. ... They are moving towards self-sufficiency."

While "there are challenges, a lot of work to be done," particularly in strengthening internal security, Lieberman heard Talabani say that 12 of the country's 18 provinces are reasonably secure.

Even the news about the National Intelligence Estimate, which found that the Iraq war had spread terrorism, did not deter Lieberman.

"Are there terrorists in Iraq? Of course there are. That's a reason we went in," he said. But he would not comment on the report itself, saying, "We don't know what it says. We have to see it."

President Bush on Tuesday ordered parts of the report declassified, and defended the war.