Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, appeared this morning on Face The Nation.The President's "surge" strategy can not achieve it's goals of securing Iraq and giving the Iraqi government time to reach a consensus, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said on Face The Nation.
"The point of the surge was to give time for the Iraqi politicians to work out the constitutional elements, not only the oil law, but the local elections, a whole raft of things," Lugar said. "They're not going to be able to do that in that period of time of about December or next March or what have you."
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"The president probably has the authority, if he wishes, to pursue right out to the end of his term a full-blown surge or whatever he wants to do – although, my guess is the constraints of the presidential campaign, the congressional campaign, are likely to bring pause even to the president if he were to have that idea," Lugar said.
But, Lugar said he wanted to change the president's plan before it came to that.
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Lugar said he's not alone in his party. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., was very encouraging, Lugar said, and other Republicans have already indicated the feel similarly by their votes on various amendments. He said he asked Democrats to be prepared to work with the president if he decides to lead and change course sooner rather than later.
"I hope something will come of this now," Lugar said, "not punting the ball down to September when these reports all come in and we have some good news, some bad news."
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