Senator Chuck Hagel (Republican from Nebraska) called on Wednesday the redeployment of American forces in Iraq to more secure areas in Iraq and the Gulf, as well as a redefining of their mission. Hagel, speaking on Capitol Hill at an event sponsored by the libertarian CATO Institute, said that the United States is caught in an untenable position in Iraq right now. The mission of American soldiers is inherently flawed, he said, as they are fighting an Iraqi war. The solution is to create a lighter American footprint in Iraq, by redeploying forces so they are best positioned to provide support, Hagel said. In addition, an international presence—ideally under the auspices of the United Nations—should be brought in to try to mediate the disagreements between the warring Iraqi factions, and to prevent a war that extends outward into the rest of the Middle East, he said. The one thing the United States does not need, Hagel said, is a larger troop presence. That just invites more deaths, and keeps terrorist forces in Iraq legitimate to the larger population. Our presence, he said, is their oxygen. “The time for more troops is past,” he said. “We must begin planning for a phased withdrawal and redeployment of US troops from Iraq. The only sustainable way forward is to achieve Iraqi political accommodation that will begin to move the country towards political reconciliation. However, Iraqis by themselves appear incapable of achieving political progress. They have had more than four years to find a political consensus. It continues to evade them, increasing the violence and danger in the Middle East.”
