White House blows off Warner-Lugar Iraq plan

July 16, 2007

Washington, DC- The White House rejected a plan by senators Richard Lugar and John Warner to begin charting a new course in Iraq, with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley saying the administration would await a September report from the top U.S. commander.

The White House rejected a plan by senators Richard Lugar and John Warner to begin charting a new course in Iraq, with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley saying the administration would await a September report from the top U.S. commander.

The proposal, authored by senior GOP senators Richard Lugar and John Warner, is one of several under consideration as the Senate debates the Defense Department authorization bill for 2008.

Hadley told CNN's "Late Edition" that their proposal contained "some interesting ideas," but the White House wasn't ready to support them. "The Congress in May set out a schedule and a structure for that process of consideration, and it begins in September," he said. "It begins with some reports that will be prepared by the administration and from outside the administration."

Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq in January, launching a campaign aimed at pacifying Baghdad and its surrounding provinces and buying time for Iraq's year-old government to reach a political settlement of the country's insurgent and sectarian warfare.

But an interim report on the progress of the war last week found the Iraqis had made only mixed progress toward meeting 18 political benchmarks set by Congress in May. A more detailed report by Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker is expected by mid-September.