Abizaid and Pace said they did not foresee a year ago that sectarian violence
would be as high as it is now.
Abizaid said he believed Iraq would "move toward equilibrium in the next five
years" with the right mix of political and military pressure. Bush has said he
does not expect the last U.S. troops to leave during his presidency, which ends
in January 2009.
"Shiite and Sunni are going to have to love their children more than they
hate each other," Pace said. "The weight of that must be on the Iraqi people and
the Iraqi government."
The Bush administration's handling of the war drew sharp rebukes from
Democrats and some Republicans Thursday. Sen. John McCain likened the
positioning of forces in Iraq to a game of "whack-a-mole," where generals try to
curb violence in one area only to see it pop up somewhere else.
"It's very disturbing," said McCain, R-Ariz. "And if it's all up to the Iraqi
military, General Abizaid, and if it's all up to them, then I wonder why we have
to move troops into Baghdad to intervene in what is clearly sectarian violence."
Rumsfeld also sparred with Democratic senators over his handling of the war.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York told Rumsfeld he was "presiding over
a failed policy" in Iraq, and asked him why lawmakers should believe his
assurances that conditions in Iraq would improve.
"My goodness," Rumsfeld responded to her list of complaints; then he restated
administration positions.
Clinton later told the Associated Press the president should accept
Rumsfeld's resignation.
The generals' comments posed anew the question of what would happen if the
Iraqi government crumbled and U.S. troops were left between competing armed
militias. Sen. John W. Warner , who chairs the Armed Services Committee, said a
civil war in Iraq would raise questions about the U.S. commitment there.
"I think we have to examine very carefully what Congress authorized the
president to do in the context of a situation if we're faced with an all-out
civil war and whether we have to come back to the Congress to get further
indication of support," said Warner, R-Va.
In yet another sign of lawmakers' uncertainty of the situation in Iraq, Sen.
Pat Roberts, R-Kan., on Thursday called for a revised intelligence estimate of
Iraq, a document prepared by the intelligence community to give officials an
unvarnished snapshot of the security situation.
Pace told McCain that U.S. troops are trained and equipped to respond to
violence caused by ethnic strife, but their role would be limited.
"There's a difference between the kind of violence they have to handle and
what will prevent that violence," Pace said. "And preventing that violence is
very much the role of the political leaders in Iraq to solve, sir."
Later in the hearing, the generals expressed confidence that the Iraqi
government was moving in the right direction.
"Am I optimistic whether or not Iraqi forces, with our support, with the
backing of the Iraqi government, can prevent the slide to civil war? My answer
is yes," Abizaid said.