Biden Opposes a Troop Increase in Iraq, Foreshadowing a Fight With the Bush Administration / By HELENE COOPER
Senator BidenWASHINGTON, Dec. 26 — Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday rejected a troop increase for Iraq, foreshadowing what could be a contentious fight between the Bush administration and Congress.
Mr. Biden, a Democrat, announced that he would begin hearings on Iraq on Jan. 9 and expected high-ranking officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to appear.
As President Bush flew to his Texas ranch on Tuesday, a spokesman for the National Security Council urged the senator to wait for Mr. Bush to present his new Iraq policy next month before passing judgment.
“ President Bush will talk soon to our troops, the American people and Iraqis about a new way forward for Iraq that will lead to a democratic, unified country that can govern, defend and sustain itself,” said Gordon Johndroe, the council spokesman.
The date has not been scheduled, but administration officials said it would be before the State of the Union address on Jan. 23. Mr. Bush, who intends to write the speech this week, is to hold a National Security Council meeting on Thursday at his ranch to discuss Iraq policy. Vice President Dick Cheney, Ms. Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, are expected to attend.
One plan under consideration is to send an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq in a bid to restore order. “I totally oppose this surging of additional American troops into Baghdad,” Mr. Biden said. “It’s contrary to the overwhelming body of informed opinion, both inside and outside the administration.”
Mr. Biden, who said he planned to run for president in 2008, made his critique during a teleconference call with reporters. He continued to press his proposal for a partitioning of Iraq into three autonomous states — controlled by Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — to be sustained with what he called an equitable distribution of the country’s oil wealth.
He did not say what he would do if the administration went ahead with a temporary increase in American combat forces, and it is unclear whether the Democrats have the power to stop such a move.
While Congress could hold up funding for the war in Iraq, the administration retains the upper hand in determining the American course there, especially since it is unlikely that a Congress that is so evenly split between Republicans and Democrats will speak with a unified voice.
One thing remains certain, though: President Bush will remain under pressure to talk to Iran and Syria about the deteriorating situation in Iraq in particular and the Middle East in general, as is called for by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by James A. Baker III, the former Republican secretary of state, and Lee H. Hamilton, the former Democratic congressman.
While the Bush administration has indicated that American officials will not heed the suggestion that they enlist help from Iran and Syria, there continues to be a drumbeat of calls for the United States to talk to those countries.
Earlier this month, three Democratic senators — Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, Bill Nelson of Florida and John Kerry of Massachusetts — ignored protests from the Bush administration and flew to Damascus to meet with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. On Tuesday, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania became the first Republican to follow suit.
Mr. Specter said before leaving the United States that other Republican lawmakers might follow him to Damascus. He said there was growing concern that the administration’s policies in the Middle East were not working.
Although the United States still has an embassy in Damascus, it has been represented there by a chargé d’affaires since Mr. Bush recalled the ambassador, Margaret Scobey, after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, in February 2005.
Since then contact between the two governments have been kept to low-level officials, and last week Ms. Rice reiterated that the United States planned to keep its associations with Damascus in the deep freeze.