Hadley and a few others want to send in more troops. Cheney wants to throw full support behind the Shiite majority. Condi Rice wants to work with the Sunni moderates. General Pace says they do not need more troops. It appears to this untrained eye that it is in complete disarray...
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/world/middleeast/13prexy.html?hp&ex=1165986000&en=888fb269573e196a&ei=5094&partner=homepage<snip>
Among the complicated debates under way within the administration is the question of whether the United States should dispatch more American troops to Baghdad as part of a short-term surge aimed at quashing such attacks. The idea of a surge has been raised repeatedly by Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, but has prompted skepticism from commanders on the ground about its effectiveness.
Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is not expected to advocate a surge when he briefs Mr. Bush at the Pentagon on Wednesday. A White House official said Mr. Hadley was only keeping options open for the president and not necessarily advocating one over another.
A central thrust of the discussions at all levels of the administration is how to pressure Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to move faster to provide basic services and quell sectarian violence — some of which stems from his powerful supporter, the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr — and whether to force him to meet certain benchmarks or face penalties and rewards, also to be determined.
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Some members of the administration, including some in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, have argued that the administration needs to provide clear support to a strong Shiite majority government, but the State Department, led by Condoleezza Rice, views that as a recipe for perpetual civil war. Ms. Rice has instead advocated a proposal intended to woo centrist Sunni leaders to Mr. Maliki’s side, including provincial leaders. One senior administration official said reports of internal arguments on this issue were “overblown” because “everyone believes in national reconciliation.”