McCaskill on Face the Nation

"There are no good answers in Iraq," said Senator-elect Claire McCaskill on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday morning.

McCaskill was addressing the record level of violence in that country's capital, Baghdad, and what options were left.

McCaskill complemented President Bush's efforts to bring together the "moderate arab countries in the region." Those countries, she said, have their own stake in Iraq's fate.

President Bush is traveling to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki in Amman, Jordan, next week. Vice-President Dick Cheney has spent recent days in Saudi Arabia where its expected they will ask the kingdom to use its influence in Iraq's Sunni community to help broker a stand-down between the Sunni and Shiite factions.

McCaskill was also critical of Bush, however, saying that the November election was a rebuke of the administration's policies to this point. There are two years for him to change course, she said.

Despite heightened expectations for action on Iraq by the new Democratic majorities in the Senate and the House, McCaskill was quick to downplay the role Congress can play in the war.

"There is only one commander-in-chief," said McCaskill.

The Democratic Congress' role is likely going to limit itself to oversight. The power of the purse is one the Congress is unlikely to implement in addressing problems in Iraq. McCaskill said it was "unrealistic" that the Congress would consider cutting funding.

McCaskill appeared on the program with Senators-elect Bob Corker (R-Tenn), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), fellow members of the freshman class.

Corker agreed with McCaskill's support for greater regional involvement in the Iraqi region. At issue in involving Iraq's neighbors is discomfort with the role Iran or Syria could play. Both have been accused by the administration for fostering and supporting the violence in Iraq.

Corker seemed to buck the administration's line by supporting some form of dialogue with Syria.

"Even though they are our enemy, they need to be engaged," said Corker.

Demonstrating the enormous difficulty of taking any step in Iraq, followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, the powerfull Shiite religious leader, said they will walk out of the parliament and Maliki's cabinent if the Prime Minister goes through with his meeting with Bush. Sadr's supprt was crucial to Maliki's in his early months as prime minister.

On Saturday, followers of Sadr, who is said to control the Mahdi Army, the most powerful of the Shiite militias, took control of the state-run television to denounce the Iraqi government. The militants also denounced members of the Sunni community as terrorists and appeared to be issuing, "what appeared to many viewers as a call to arms.

Update: A New York Times story out on Monday suggests that the independent Iraq Study Group will recommend some form of dialogue, perhaps even direct talks, with Iran and Syria about Iraq. Both countries have been exerting covert influence on the political process and militant activity in Iraq.

An interesting comment in the piece comes from Robert Gates, the former CIA head chosen by Bush to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld the day after the November elections: "Mr. Gates has said little about his thoughts on military strategy, other than to express amazement when he visited Iraq with the study group over Labor Day that the administration had let the situation spin so far out of control."