POSTED: 10:39 p.m. EST, November 26, 2006
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A leading Republican senator called Sunday for American troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq, declaring that a U.S. pullout is needed to head off "impending disaster" in the nearly 4-year-old war.
"There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq," Sen. Chuck Hagel wrote in Sunday's edition of The Washington Post.
Instead, he said, President Bush should use the upcoming report from a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James Baker to begin laying the groundwork for a "phased withdrawal" of U.S. troops.
"If the president fails to build a bipartisan foundation for an exit strategy, America will pay a high price for this blunder -- one that we will have difficulty recovering from in the years ahead," Hagel wrote.
"To squander this moment would be to squander future possibilities for the Middle East and the world. That is what is at stake over the next few months."
Hagel, of Nebraska, served in Vietnam as an infantry sergeant and is now the second-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Though he voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq, he has been an increasingly outspoken critic of the administration's management of the conflict.
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