WAUKEE, Iowa – Republican presidential contender Sam Brownback said that
Congress should stop debating U.S. military withdrawal timetables and instead
move forward with a plan to partition Iraq into three states.
Reflecting a rare melding of thought among presidential contenders of different
political parties, Brownback, a Kansas senator, said he will try to advance
next-week legislation he has co-sponsored with Democratic candidate Sen. Joseph
Biden of Delaware. The legislation would implement the so-called three-state
solution in the country. The plan would establish separate boundaries for the
country’s Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite populations.
The legislation has generally been opposed by the White House, which has
rejected the concept of a decentralized Iraqi government that would mainly deal
with border incursions and distribution of the nation’s oil revenues.
But Brownback, making a stop at the Waukee Fall Festival, said Army Gen. David
Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, has “put to rest for a while”
concerns in Washington that the military was not making progress. But, he said,
testimony by Ambassador Ryan Crocker “did not put to rest the question of
whether we’re making political progress” in Iraq.
“We had two guys testify this last week. We had Petraeus and Crocker. All the
focus has been on Petraeus, but where we really need focus is on Crocker,”
Brownback told reporters. “This is where we’re not getting the progress, the
political part, and it’s actually where we could come together.”
Brownback said he has detected no change in the “environment” that existed in
previous unsuccessful attempts led by Democrats to tie military withdrawal
timetables to Iraq War funding.
Brownback said he has discussed a renewed push for the partitioning legislation
with Biden and with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and “my hope
is we can bring it up for a vote.”
The socially conservative Kansas senator, who has said he needs a top four
finish in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses to continue his presidential
campaign, said even a phased process of partitioning Iraq could lead to a
reduction of U.S. troop levels.
Still, he said, he expects a long-term commitment by U.S. troops to provide
oversight to the Kurds in the north because of long-standing tensions with
Turkey and to the Sunnis in the west because of concerns by Saudi Arabia.
“The key is getting our death loss down. We can be someplace for 50 years if
we’re not losing soldiers,” Brownback said. “But if we’re losing people every
day, I can’t support that.”
