By DENNIS CAMIRE
Advertiser Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The Hawai'i congressional delegation, which has called for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq, were not swayed from their view Monday despite a new assessment of the war and the country's political condition.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawai`i, said the Iraq war was supposed to be a pre-emptive strike in the war on terrorism but has devolved into a civil war and an al-Qaida recruitment tool.

"We need a new direction," said Inouye, who voted against giving President Bush the authority to go to war in 2002. "That new direction, as I have advocated earlier, is a phased redeployment of troops from Iraq with us leaving the battlefield with honor."

Army Gen. David Petraeus, lead ground commander in Iraq, gave lawmakers an encouraging but cautious appraisal of the troop surge President Bush announced in January, saying he would recommend modest troop reductions over the next several months.

Petraeus said he was hopeful troop levels could be reduced to pre-surge levels - from about 160,000 now to about 125,000 or less - by next summer.

"Iraqi elements are slowly taking on more of the responsibility for protecting their cities," he told a rare joint session of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees.

But Sen. Dan Akaka, D-Hawai`i, said the administration's war plan was not working and a new direction was needed.

"The Iraqi government must take more responsibility for ensuring their nation's own security," said Akaka, who also voted against the war resolution in 2002. "A phased redeployment of U.S. troops will give the Iraqi security forces the primary combat role in protecting and defending their own nation."

The United States cannot continue 'indefinitely squandering' its resources and its soldiers' lives," Akaka said.

"It is time to put the future of Iraq in the hands of the Iraqi people and their elected leaders," he said.

Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawai`i, said she continues to support the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

"Our men and women in uniform have accomplished everything asked of them in Iraq and everything they are capable of," she said. "Even if the troop surge has had limited success in improving security in some areas of Iraq, the surge is not sustainable over time and has not accomplished its goal, which was to provide an opportunity for Iraq to make necessary political progress."

But Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told lawmakers he believed "a secure, stable, democratic Iraq at peace with its neighbors is ... attainable," although he called Iraq "a traumatized society."

"This process will not be quick," he said. "It will be uneven. It will require substantial U.S. resolve and commitment."

Both Petraeus and Crocker warned that leaving Iraq unstable would be disastrous.

"Our current course is hard," Crocker said. "The alternatives are far worse."

Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai`i, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, said lost in Petraeus' statistics was "a very simple yet heartbreaking fact" that the number of troops killed so far this year - 740 - has increased from the 462 killed from January through August 2006.

"We are in a situation in which we're saying there is only one plan for Iraq militarily speaking - indefinite occupation by U.S. troops," said Abercrombie, who also voted against the 2002 war resolution. "We are occupying that country politically and militarily and we are going to suffer the results."

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