Iraq Roundtable: Withdrawal, More Troops or Same Strategy?

Nov. 29, 2006 — -- As President Bush meets with international leaders in Jordan, partly on a search to sort out what the U.S. should now be doing in Iraq, there are basically three options -- send more troops to Iraq to stop the violence, continue with the present course or set a schedule for leaving Iraq and get the troops out.

ABC News decided to put these options to three experts and get their opinions on the best course of action. The follownig is a partial transcript of Charles Gibson's roundtable discussion with Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria, former Army Vice Chief of Staff, retired General Jack Keane and the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass.

Charles Gibson: There are some who contend we ought to send more troops. More troops. Good idea? Viable option?

Gen. Jack Keane: Well, from my perspective, certainly that is one of the options … The strategy we have, which was in its essence a defensive military strategy, it was never designed to defeat the insurgency. It was simply designed to transition to the Iraqi security force as its core principle …

So now with sectarian violence and insurgency and instability and insecurity, does it still make sense to try to protect and support the people? I still believe that's a realistic option that should be looked at.

Fareed Zakaria: More forces would have worked if the only problem we were dealing with was the insurgency. What you're dealing with now is a civil war.

Richard Haass: Let me give a different perspective. We've already sent more troops. We're already up to about 150,000 American soldiers.

We could send a few more, it won't do a lot militarily, but what it may do is help the administration, politically. We're probably reaching a point where the president's trip and, more broadly, U.S. policy now is what you might call the last hurrah.