Military chief: New strategy for Iraq

It may be time to “redefine the goals” for Iraq, the admiral picked to lead US forces in the Middle East told Congress as politicians of both parties manoeuvred for leverage against President George Bush’s proposed troop build-up.

Navy Adm. William Fallon, Bush’s nominee to head the US Central Command, told his Senate confirmation hearing the time for finding solutions in Iraq was running out.

“What we have been doing has not been working,” he said. “We have got to be doing, it seems to me, something different.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, recently returned from a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, told a news conference on Capitol Hill that her delegation saw no sign that US efforts in Iraq were moving ahead with urgency.

“We went with the hope and expectation that what we would see in Iraq was some coordinated effort to have political solutions, to relieve the civil strife and violence there, and diplomatic efforts to bring stability to the region,” she said. “We saw no evidence of either, sadly.”

She praised the US military’s efforts but said more must be done on the economic and political fronts.