Ranking member of Armed Services offers new plan (Levin) -The Hill

The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that he has urged the leaders of Iraq’s fledgling government to invite members of the international community, including the United States, to maintain their military presence in Iraq only until Iraqi security forces are ready to take over.

Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.) made the proposal during meetings with the leaders of Iraq’s three main ethnic groups during a 10-hour visit to Baghdad on Saturday. He also met with the top U.S. military and diplomatic officials in Iraq.
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While Levin said he didn’t have “a formal sign-off” from Armed Services Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) for his unusual initiative, he said he thought Warner would be “very supportive of what I was doing.”
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He described the election Saturday of a prominent Sunni official as speaker of the national assembly as a “step forward after some fits and starts” but added, “Nonetheless, to me it’s a very, very uncertain future in terms of the political resolution here, and there’s some real tensions, particularly between the Sunnis and the Shia, and I don’t see that being resolved.”

He added, “Frankly, I see that as potentially where this whole thing breaks down, and if it does, and somehow both those communities can’t be satisfied, this thing could end up in the streets. That’s my major fear.”

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