Senate threat to revisit authority for war in Iraq

Financial Times

The US Congress may have to re-examine President George W. Bush’s authority to wage war in Iraq if the country descends into full-blown civil war, an influential Republican senator said on Thursday.

John Warner, chairman of the Senate armed services committee, raised the possibility that Congress might have to revisit the authorisation it gave Mr Bush to wage war in Iraq after two senior US generals conceded that Iraq could slide into civil war.

Some Republican senators joined Democrats in questioning whether the US military had expected a year ago that violence in Iraq would have increased to the current levels, with 100 deaths a day in Baghdad. Both generals said they had not expected this.

The generals were speaking as the US military decided to delay the departure of some troops to bolster counter-insurgency efforts in Baghdad. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has long criticised Mr Rumsfeld for not sending more troops to Iraq, said the military was employing a strategy of “whack-a-mole” by redeploying troops from areas that were not under control to other violent areas.

“It’s very disturbing,” said Mr McCain. “If it’s all up to the Iraqi military, General Abizaid … then I wonder why we have to move troops into Baghdad to intervene in what is clearly sectarian violence.”