"While it is our intention to withdraw relatively rapidly from Iraqi political life and day-to-day decisions, we will remain in Iraq as an essential security force for as long as it takes," Wolfowitz said.
"The problem is it's very difficult to predict that," he said, in a tense exchange with Delaware Democrat Sen. Joseph Biden.
Biden opened the hearing with a contentious challenge: that the peacekeeping deployment in Iraq is going to be longer and the reconstruction more costly than any other overseas commitment the United States has.
"When are you going to tell the American people that?" Biden asked Wolfowitz, who was one of the main champions inside the administration of the war.
"I don't know how many forces are going to be needed two years from now," Wolfowitz said, refusing to be pinned down.
Wolfowitz publicly shot down an estimate made in February by Gen. Eric Shinseki, the outgoing chief of staff of the Army, that it would take several hundred thousand troops to keep peace in Iraq. Wolfowitz said he would have preferred not to comment but had to come out strongly against Shinseki, as his estimate played into the hands of critical Arabs who contended America sought to occupy Iraq in the manner of post-World War II Japan or Germany.
"I thought (the comment) was very harmful," Wolfowitz told the committee. He cited America's continued presence in Bosnia after eight years as an example of American staying power and commitment to Iraq. It was a politically risky reference because then-candidate George Bush scored points with conservatives by criticizing open-ended peacekeeping commitments. It was only after the election, under pressure from NATO, that Bush declared the United States would not pull its peacekeepers out of the Balkans until the rest of NATO did as well.
Wolfowitz went on to say that in many ways Iraq was a more difficult prospect than the Balkans: several "tens of thousands" regime loyalists and some 20,000 criminals released into Baghdad's streets during the war makes establishing order a difficult prospect.
On the other hand, Iraq is not plagued by the ethnic violence that wracked the Balkans, Wolfowitz said.
"Iraq starts with more goodwill than we ever had in the Balkans," he said. There are 145,000 U.S. service members in Iraq now with another 18,000 from the 1st Armored Division on the way, said Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"There are huge problems but there are huge resources" inside Iraq to deal with them, he said.
The Bush administration is putting a great deal of faith in Iraq's enormous oil reserve to foot the bill for the country's reconstruction. But Biden contended the oil infrastructure is in such a shambles it will cost the U.S. taxpayer billions just to get the wells moving again. "Just to get to 1 million barrels a day they'll need a $5 billion investment in the oil fields," he said.
To get to 5.5 million barrels a day it will take seven to 10 years and require $30 billion to $40 billion, he said.
"No one is suggesting there are going to be (Iraqi oil) revenues even remotely to cover that," Biden said.
Next year there will be an estimated national deficit of close to $400 billion, Biden said, and "the American people are not going to understand" why they are sending billions to Iraq when the money could be spent domestically.
Wolfowitz came to the Senate ostensibly to explain the Bush administration's reconstruction plan for Iraq, but a senior adviser admitted privately he was prepared to "take some bullets" for the Bush administration.
While overwhelmingly supportive of the war, Congress has been les impressed by the month-old attempt to establish order and begin rebuilding the country. Some of it is political -- they were not briefed on the plan before the war, and have been largely left out of the process since it began -- and some is simply practical: Iraq has been wracked by looting and violence since the regime was toppled, and basic services are only now being restored to many parts of the country.
Wolfowitz laid out the Pentagon's view of the effort, which he deems successful though not perfect. Because of the speed and precision of the war, they averted an expected refugee crisis, were not exposed to chemical or biological weapons, and troops did far less damage to people and buildings than was anticipated. The oil fields were protected from sabotage and electric and water services are coming back on.
Short supplies of food and medicine are blamed not on the war but on the previous regime's policies.
Wolfowitz said the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Affairs -- now staffed by 617 Americans and 471 coalition members -- is working to expand a "senior leadership council" of Iraqi advisers, which "in intensive consultations" with ORHA will determine how to create an interim government and then a new democratically elected government for the country.
"There is no legitimate Iraqi political process" to draw on, he said. Wolfowitz personally favors beginning with local elections and moving the process up from there. At the same time, he thinks it will take between six months and a year for the Iraqis to write a new constitution.
Copyright 2003 by United Press International.
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