McCain: Iraqi military training likely to take ‘a couple more years’

? A leading Republican senator said Sunday it probably would take “at least a couple more years” before enough Iraqis are capable of securing their country, a prime condition set by the Bush administration for beginning to withdraw U.S. troops.

“I don’t think Americans believe that we should cut and run out of Iraq by any stretch of the imagination,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

“But I think they also would like to be told, in reality, what’s going on. And, by the way, I think part of that is it’s going to be at least a couple more years,” said McCain, the No. 2 Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Despite the growing number of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers dying, U.S. officials have said the insurgency is beginning to wane and that progress has been made in Iraq’s transition to a democracy. Recent polls show support for the war slipping among Americans.

McCain and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said the U.S. public needs to be told more clearly and realistically the difficult challenges in Iraq.

“I think we should tell people it’s not going to be short,” McCain said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I’d rather say two or three years and be surprised a year from now than say everything’s fine and then be disappointed a year or two from now,” he said.

Biden was asked on CBS’s “Face the Nation” if the administration has been telling Americans the truth about the situation in Iraq. He said, “No, they’re not telling the truth. … I think the American people know how tough this is going to be.”

“I think the American people, if you lay out a plan and tell them the truth about how hard it’s going to be, and why you think it’s important, they’ll stick,” said Biden, who recently visited Iraq for the fifth time.

“I think the administration figures they’ve got to paint a rosy picture in order to keep the American people in the game. And the exact opposite is happening,” said Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In a CNN interview last month, Vice President Dick Cheney said: “The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.”

Both McCain and Biden said they disagreed with the description of the insurgency as in its last throes. But McCain cited what he called hopeful signs – better training and equipment for the Iraqi military, advances in forming an Iraqi government, and less insurgent activity among Iraqi citizens as opposed to foreigners coming into the country.

In a more pessimistic analysis, Biden said the border cannot be guarded adequately and the country is turning into a training ground for terrorists bound for other parts of the region. The military also is having difficulty making greater progress securing cities and in generating a counterinsurgency, he said.

“It’s nowhere near the last throes,” Biden said. “Matter of fact it’s getting worse, not better.”

The senators spoke three days after confirming President Bush’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. He is a former White House official who has served as U.S. ambassador in his native Afghanistan.

Khalilzad succeeds John D. Negroponte, who is now the national intelligence director.