WASHINGTON - After three retired military officials gave stark and often blistering accounts Monday of the Bush administration's failures in prosecuting the Iraq war, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said the testimony could change the nation.
"This would not have happened if not for the three brave individuals who came forward to tell their story," the Nevada Democrat said of the first of what is to be a series of Democratic-run hearings on the war in Iraq.
Democrats say they are holding the hearings because Congress, under Republican leadership, has failed in its historic role of watching over the administration's handling of the war.
Republicans dismiss the Democrats' unusual hearings as nothing but election-year politics.
For more than two hours the former uniformed officers, with decades of years of service among them, described the difficulties they faced trying to win in Iraq with a shortage of troops, inadequate gear and a war plan that failed to prepare for the insurgency.
They all said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must go.
"Secretary Rumsfeld's plan did not set our military up for success," said retired Army Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste, who had been a senior military assistant to former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz earlier in the Bush administration.
The two-star general said he left the military in 2005, ending a 31-year career, because he felt he could do more good for his soldiers and their families out of uniform.
"Secretary Rumsfeld's dismal strategic decisions resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies, and the good people of Iraq," Batiste said.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton said Rumsfeld continues to fight the war on the cheap. Eaton was responsible for training the Iraqi military and rebuilding the Iraqi police force.
Thomas X. Hammes, a retired Marine Corps colonel who had been responsible for establishing bases for the Iraqi armed forces, said the insurgency cannot be won by military action alone but requires all elements of government.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority whip, called the hearings a "partisan media event. And while it may rile up their liberal base, it won't kill a single terrorist or prevent a single attack."
White House spokesman Peter Watkins dismissed calls for Rumsfeld's ouster.
However, one Republican, Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina, joined the hearing.
"I do not want the history to show I did not do my job to let the American people know the facts and the truth," he said.
Nevada Sen. John Ensign's bill to prohibit adults from taking minors across some state lines for abortions isn't dead after all.
The Senate passed the bill this summer, but Democrats blocked it from going to a conference committee that would reconcile it with more restrictive legislation approved by the House. Democrats opposed elements of the House bill, including language they said failed to protect incest victims, and feared they would find their way into the final version.
House Republicans apparently will try to break the logjam by taking up the Senate version of the bill and modifying it. The House could then pass it and send it back to the Senate for an up-or-down vote, avoiding a conference committee.
Reid's office said if the House is serious about enacting a bill, that chamber could pass the Senate version as is and send it directly to the president.
A spokesman for Ensign said the senator was working to determine the best strategy to bring the bill up for a vote.
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