Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=4-22-04

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=CONGRESS / IRAQ (L-O)

NUMBER=2-315277

BYLINE=DEBORAH TATE

DATELINE=CAPITOL HILL

INTRO: U-S lawmakers Thursday pressed Bush administration officials about plans for transferring sovereignty in Iraq to the Iraqi people at the end of June. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held its third hearing in three days on the June 30th handover. Correspondent Deborah Tate reports from Capitol Hill.

TEXT: With a little over two months before U-S Administrator Paul Bremer is to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee demanded details of the plan.

Committee Chairman Senator Richard Lugar is an Indiana Republican:

/// LUGAR ACTUALITY ///

A detailed plan is necessary to prove to our allies and to Iraqis that we have a strategy and that we are committed to making it work. If we cannot provide this clarity, we risk the loss of support of the American people, the loss of potential contributions from our allies and the disillusionment of the Iraqis.

/// END ACT ///

Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman offered a budget estimate for the U-S operation in Iraq through the end of next year.

/// GROSSMAN ACTUALITY ///

Our current estimate for the resource requirement for the mission for the rest of (the budget year) 2004 and 2005 are between one-point-one and one-point-five billion dollars, excluding the cost of a new embassy building.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Grossman said the administration soon would send Congress a request for more money.

He said the new U-S embassy in Baghdad would employ about one-thousand Americans and some 700 Iraqis.

U-S commanders are expected to continue leading military operations after the June 30th transfer of sovereignty. But Mr. Grossman said there will be a noticeable change in Iraq after the handover.

/// GROSSMAN ACTUALITY ///

On the first of July, all of those ministries will be run by Iraqis. Iraqis will take control of the Development Fund for Iraq. It will be their money. Iraqis will take control of oil revenue. It will be their money. I do not debate you on the security area, but what I say to you is that in many, many, many parts of Iraqi life, there will be a very important Iraqi face on an Iraqi government.

/// END ACT ///

While U-S officials offered details of the transfer of political power, they could not give a time table for when the Iraqis could assume total control of the security of their country.

/// OPT /// Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, pressed Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter Rodman on the issue:

/// FEINGOLD OPT ACTUALITY ///

I am just looking for some kind of timeframe, just as we gave the America people a timeframe in turning over authority, a timeframe the American people could look at that would be a reasonable estimate of turning over the security primarily to the Iraqis as opposed to the United States. What can I tell them is a reasonable estimate of time?

/// RODMAN OPT ACTUALITY ///

Unfortunately, I am not in a position to give you a number of years or months. I think it is going to be a gradual process.

/// END ACT /// /// END OPT ///

The Foreign Relations Committee will discuss Iraq again next Tuesday, when it considers President Bush's nomination of U-N Ambassador John Negroponte to become the first U-S Ambassador to Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War. (SIGNED)

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