Lamar 'not persuaded' on sending more troops to Iraq

Tennessee Senator joins growing list of GOP lawmakers openly questioning President Bush

Email | Print By Ken Whitehouse and E. Thomas Wood

Lamar Alexander

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) is questioning President George W. Bush's plan to send 21,000 more troops into Iraq, joining a growing list of Republican members who are wary of the administration's war plans.

While Alexander's staff sent out an official statement to the media last night lauding Bush's State of the Union address for proposed initiatives to cut health care costs and American dependence on foreign oil, their boss was on CNN talking about the 800-pound gorilla called Iraq that was not even mentioned to Tennessee media.

Appearing on CNN's Anderson Cooper show following the State of the Union address, Alexander stated: "I'm not really persuaded that sending 21,000 more troops is the right idea."

Alexander went on to tell Cooper: "The president prefers to go ahead and try one more time to help Baghdad secure itself. I understand the argument. I don't agree with it."

Alexander emphasized that he does not support pulling American troops entirely out of Iraq. "Terrorism is worse today than it was five years ago," he said. "The war in Iraq hasn't been as successful as any of us would like. All of us would like to be out of there, but we can't be right now."

Rather, the senator endorsed a bipartisan blueprint that Bush has already largely rejected. "I prefer the Iraq Study Group's approach," he said, defining it as: "step back, send a clear signal we're there in a supporting role for a while, get our troops out of the combat business, into the support business, go after al-Qaeda there. I think we can develop support for that in this country."

Other prominent Republicans are questioning Bush's foreign policy plans as well.

Potential GOP presidential candidate Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska has gone the furthest, backing a Democratic proposal that states that sending more troops to Iraq is "not in our national interest." An Associated Press report this morning quoted him as telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder."

Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) are among Alexander's other colleagues who have expressed skepticism over the direction of the Iraq war and Bush's plans. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), a GOP elder statesman on foreign affairs, is also doubtful. "I am not confident that President Bush's plan will succeed," Lugar said this morning at the Foreign Relations Committee meeting.