From the Marine Corps Times:

Senators: Iraq situation bleak

By Rick Maze
Staff writer

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee offered bleak assessments Thursday of the situation in Iraq and of chances of any near-term withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the armed services committee chairman, said Iraq “is imply drifting sideways” because the new government has been unable to exercise the reins of power or find a way to disarm the secular militias that are endangering lives.

Warner flatly declared that the U.S. is “losing the Baghdad campaign” as the number of casualties rises.

“War grinds on and we taking distressing tolls of life and limb every day,” he said.

Warner said something big needs to happen to jump start the government so it regains some hope after last year’s elections. He suggested another vote on a referendum for the Iraqi people about whether and how long they want U.S. troops to remain.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the armed services committee’s ranking Democrat, said at an earlier, separate news conference the he does not think the Iraqi government understands that the U.S. will be leaving someday.

He described Iraq as being “on the verge of an all-out civil war” and said Iraq’s leaders “clearly do not want us to even think about reducing troops,” an attitude that “is just going to be an endless quagmire” for the U.S.

In fact, he said Iraq’s leaders seem to think the U.S. presence is the only thing preventing a full civil war from breaking out, believing “we will save their bacon.”

But depending on the U.S. for security instead of reaching an agreement between rival factions for sharing power and disarming militias makes it “more likely they are going to end up in a civil war if they think we are going to step in and prevent it.”

As he has before, Levin recommended that the U.S. make clear it will not be there for the long haul by setting a date for a withdrawal of U.S. forces to begin.

“I believe this is the only way we have a chance of succeeding in Iraq,” he said.

Warner and Levin agree that there will not be any U.S. troop withdrawals anytime soon, and noted that in talks with U.S. military commanders, the generals clearly were wary of making any predictions about troop reductions.

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