U.S. troops may stay in Iraq until 2015: Rice

Toronto Star | October 20, 2005
BY TIM HARPER

WASHINGTON—They are two of the darkest scenarios Americans could imagine — their troops still fighting an Iraqi insurgency in 2015, with fighting spreading to Syria.

In a long-awaited appearance before the Senate foreign relations committee yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice refused to rule either out, leaving Democrats to ponder whether she was merely being diplomatic or hinting at something more sinister.

"I think that to try and speculate on how many years from now there will be a certain number of American forces (in Iraq) is not appropriate,'' Rice told Maryland Democrat Paul Sarbanes.

She said she couldn't speculate on events a decade from now, a theme replayed later by White House spokesperson Scott McClellan.

Rice also used her first appearance before the powerful committee since her confirmation hearings last February to warn Syria and Iran that they "must decide whether they wish to side with the cause of war or with the cause of peace.''

That was a sign of mounting U.S. exasperation with regimes in Damascus and Tehran which Washington believes are ushering foreign fighters into Iraq and helping the insurgency.

"In the case of Syria,'' she said, "we are concerned about cross-border infiltration, about unconstrained travel networks and about the suspicious young men who are being waved through Damascus International Airport.''

She told senators concerned about the increasing unpopularity of the U.S. war in Iraq that Washington continued to work a two-track strategy with Syria, one diplomatic, the other military with American troops clearing out insurgents in Iraq near the Syrian border.

But she also stressed President George W. Bush has not taken a military option off the table.

Democrats continually pushed Rice for "benchmarks'' that must be met before there is a beginning of a draw-down of some 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

"The gap between the rhetoric on Iraq and the reality the American people see on the ground has created a genuine credibility chasm,'' said Joe Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the committee.

In Iraq yesterday:

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Sunni-led insurgents killed 26 people, including six Shiites who were lined up at a factory and gunned down, police said.

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Yasir Sabhawi Ibrahim, a nephew of Saddam Hussein, was arrested and charged with financing the insurgency.

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Rory Carroll, 33, a reporter for the Guardian newspaper, is believed to have been kidnapped in Baghdad.

Last modified October 20, 2005