Hillary leads delegation to Iraq

Baghdad: US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Iraq on Saturday on a one-day visit to meet with American and Iraqi officials amid heavy opposition from the Democratic-controlled Congress to President George W. Bush's plans to send in 21,500 more troops.

Clinton, a Democrat from New York who is considering running for president, was making her first trip to Iraq in nearly a year. She was travelling with US Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat-Indiana, who also had eyed the 2008 race but opted out, and Representative John McHugh, a Republican from upstate New York. They also planned to travel to Afghanistan.

The three, all members of armed services committees, were to meet with top Iraqi officials and US military commanders.

Clinton, who opposes Bush's plans to send more US troops to Iraq, last travelled to Iraq in February 2005 with Senator John McCain, a Republican presidential contender.

Bayh stressed before leaving that he wants to meet with top Iraqi officials and judge for himself how serious they are about using their own troops and leadership to stabilise the country.

"The essential truth in Iraq is that we can't do this for them," said Bayh. "We need to take away their security blanket."

McHugh has not been as critical of the Bush administration's handling of the war as the two Democrats, but like many Republicans in Congress he sounds increasingly exasperated with conditions in Iraq.

McHugh said he wanted to warn Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki of the dwindling patience in Washington.

"It's folly to think that you can stabilise 80 per cent of a country while one of the most important sites in the Middle East, Baghdad, is in total chaos. You can't just shove that under the rug," he said.

The three senators are the first group of high-level US officials to visit Baghdad since US President George W. Bush decided to dispatch more troops as part of a major new strategy for the violence-wracked country.

Clinton has criticised Bush's plan as a "proposed escalation of the war in Iraq."

"The president's Iraq policy has been marred by incompetence and arrogance as his administration has refused to recognise the military and political reality on the ground," she said.

Clinton is expected to run for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2008 presidential election, with opinion polls currently putting her as the clear front runner.