GOP’s ‘Plan B’ Far Too Late

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Bill Prendergast is back in Minnesota after another unsuccessful search for Osama bin Laden. All isn't lost, however. He has the latest details on the war czar position.

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By Christopher Truscott

The headline on the Washington Post Web site really jumps off the screen: “GOP Could Seek ‘Plan B’ on Iraq in September.”

If it was still 2003 or 2004 one could be thankful for the leadership, but today the Republican back-peddling is far too late. Wedded to a reckless policy of escalation, the president’s allies are trying to buy even more time before admitting they have been and remain absolutely wrong.

The time for “Plan B” in Iraq has long since passed. We’re now down to final options. It’s time for members of the Iraqi government to scrap their recess and take control of the country they were elected to lead.

The American military toppled Saddam Hussein and paved the way for democracy. It’s up to Iraqis to do the rest. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines can win any fight but they can’t instill in the Iraqi leadership the capacity to actually lead. That has to come from within.

While Republicans bristle at the notion of “artificial deadlines” and “handcuffs on our generals,” as if civilian control of American foreign and defense policy isn’t enshrined in the Constitution, the rest of us know we’ve been down this path before.

We’re sifting through sand in the Middle East today for the same reasons we slugged through the jungles of Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s: nobody could admit they were wrong and that old, dead-end policies needed to be tossed aside.

In 1965, as American involvement in Vietnam was on the rise, Arthur Schlesinger paraphrased comments made by President John F. Kennedy four years earlier:

“The war in Vietnam could be won only so long as it was their war. If it were ever converted into a white man’s war, we would lose as the French had lost a decade earlier.”

Though he ultimately played a role in moving us down the deadly path toward a full-scale shooting war in Southeast Asia, the thirty-fifth president’s first instincts were absolutely right. Americans couldn’t – and still can’t – effectively solve an internal conflict in a foreign land.

Just as Washington couldn’t will the South Vietnamese government to take effective measures to defend itself, today’s leaders can’t force Iraqis to end their own civil war.

No level of American troop surge, no amount of American cash and no number of American casualties can change the fact that only Iraqis can settle Iraq’s problems.

Christopher Truscott can be reached at chris.truscott@gmail.com. It doesn’t bother him that GOP leadership doesn’t know basic American history, but at least they can try to read a newspaper from time to time.

What Next, Mr. President?

By Christopher Truscott

Sometime in the next few days President George W. Bush will officially reject troop-funding legislation that calls for an end to major U.S. involvement in Iraq’s civil war by April 1, 2008.

He’s going to use his second veto as president to kill a bill that would end a quagmire.

Unfortunately that’s his prerogative. Despite George Mason’s best efforts at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, “maladministration” isn’t grounds for impeachment, so the president is free to do as he pleases in this regard. In fact, he can maladminister all he wants until he leaves office 20 months from now.

But before the president wipes the dust off his veto pen he should tell the American people where he believes we’ll be 11 months from now. Democrats have been clear on this: by next spring the bulk of the U.S. fighting force will be redeployed from Iraq. What about the president? Where does he believe we’ll be then?

Does he believe the death toll in Iraq will begin to slow, even though it’s held tragically steady since 2004?

Does he believe the Iraqi government will be able to exercise real authority outside the Green Zone? (And of course the Green Zone isn’t even safe today.)

Does he believe Iraqis will somehow change their opinion on the U.S. occupation? For the first time since the invasion, a majority of Iraqis believe it is “acceptable” to attack American troops. Is that number supposed to go down?

Does he believe we’ll be any closer to “mission accomplished” than we are today?

Does he believe his horrendous failure of a policy will somehow take hold and Sunnis and Shiites will magically stop killing each other and embrace western-style democracy?

Sadly, the president – with his faith-based approach to governing – has become the personification of a timeless Danish proverb: “The sky is not less blue because the blind man does not see it.”

Of course that’s no consolation to the 70 percent of Americans who see the world and our president as they really are.

Christopher Truscott can be reached at chris.truscott@gmail.com. Perhaps the next president will make Bush ambassador to Iraq.

Iraq War Debate: A Line in the Sand

By Christopher Truscott

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...And the craziest congresswoman is...

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American political debate is dominated by shades of gray. Rarely are things black and white, absolutely right and absolutely wrong. Usually the best answer lies somewhere toward the vast middle.

The ongoing civil war in Iraq is not one of these circumstances, however.

For more than four years we’ve been bogged down in a conflict with roots that predate European settlement in the Americas. After going too long with no end in sight, Congress has produced legislation that allows us to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We’re now waiting on President George W. Bush to stand up and do his part.

There is an absolute right in this debate, troop funding legislation backed by the House of Representatives that calls for an end to U.S. military involvement in Iraq by the end of next summer; and an absolute wrong, the “stay the course” policy offered by the president and his allies on Capitol Hill.

There was no ambiguity last November when the American people went to the polls. Iraq was the biggest issue and developing an exit strategy was the winning argument. Now it’s time to make it happen. Democrats have drawn a line in the sand and can’t back down, no matter what the president says or does in the coming weeks.

Our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have preformed ably under the worst of circumstances in Iraq and have done everything asked of them by their civilian leaders. They’ve toppled a brutal dictator and brought democratic elections to a country that had operated under one-party, dictatorial rule for decades.

After a job well done, it’s time to begin the process of bringing the troops home.


The increasingly bloody civil war in Iraq will continue whether American forces stay or go. Ultimately it’s a fight that will be either won or lost by the ability of the new Iraqi leadership to forge a political solution that meets the needs of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds throughout that country. We cannot impose it on them and the time for hand-holding is over. Iraq is a sovereign state and must act like one.

In his weekly radio address, the president blasted Democrats for using the war funding bill to make a “political statement,” when in reality members of Congress are merely fulfilling their constitutionally mandated role as the authors of American policy.

Bush says funding for the troops is “critical” and has a “direct impact on their daily lives.” He’s preaching to the choir on this one. Congress also supports funding the troops. But what the majority – in Washington and throughout America – opposes is an open-ended commitment to a quagmire.

In a town hall meeting last week, U.S. Rep. John Kline, a Republican from Minnesota, said it’ll take time for Iraqis to be ready to handle their own affairs.

“We have to bring an entire (Iraqi) army up to speed,” the Bush loyalist said, “and it takes more than six weeks or 12 weeks or 12 months.”

Fair enough, but we’ve now been there for nearly 49 months. What’s the target date? 80 months? 120 months – a full decade? Longer?

The president and his supporters don’t have a plan for Iraq beyond trotting out the tired talking points of previous years. They hide behind the rally cry of “support the troops,” while continuing to send more into a lost cause. They reflexively oppose everything offered by the opposition without putting forward anything substantive of their own. They’re chasing mirages in the desert and what’s worse is they don’t even seem to realize it.

It is time for Congress to stand firm. This war must end. Since the president has failed to lead, it’s time for him to follow.

Christopher Truscott can be reached at chris.truscott@gmail.com. Remember when “Survivor” was the hot new show, the Yankees last won a World Series and Bush was supposed to be a “uniter, not a divider”?

Want the Troops Funded? Sign the Bill

By Christopher Truscott

President George W. Bush said Thursday that “when we have a troop in harm’s way, we expect that troop to be fully funded.”

If he continues with this line of thinking, he’ll announce next week that he likes nice spring days, enjoys baseball and that dogs are a commander-in-chief’s best friend. In other words: when you don’t have anything substantive to say, emphatically re-state the blatantly obvious.

No participant in the national debate over the Iraq Civil War wants a troop to go without the funding necessary to keep him safe while he’s deployed. That’s why both houses of Congress acted in a responsible manner and passed a massive funding bill for the bloody quagmire in the Middle East and the war on terrorism in Afghanistan.

At this point, only the president is standing in the way of funding for the troops. By promising to veto legislation that includes a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, the president is actually threatening to cut off the flow of deficit-spending needed to complete the mission he maintains is critical to “the security of the United States of America.”

He would also be denying funds to the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, the country that was home to the killers who actually attacked America and murdered nearly 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia. The White House does remember Osama bin Laden, right?

To think, this is the same guy who in the 2004 presidential campaign accused Sen. John Kerry of trying to de-fund troops. The flip-flop is on the other foot now.

After more than four years in Iraq, it’s time for the government in Baghdad to start handling its own affairs. American troops and diplomats have toppled a dictator, made Iraq safe for elections and helped create a new constitution and government. All that’s remaining is for Iraqi leaders to take control of their country’s destiny.

It’s true that U.S. troops can’t simply leave Iraq tomorrow, even though many Americans and their political leaders might prefer that option. But a deadline for next year – preferably the House’s binding Aug. 31, 2008, withdrawal date – gives the Iraqi government the time needed to prepare for a life post-U.S. occupation.

Why won’t the president accept a deadline? Why won’t he really acknowledge that eventually the Iraqis must “stand up”? Why won’t he admit that the American military has done everything asked of it? Why does he fear accountability for his actions?

If the president is so adamantly opposed to a deadline, where does he expect us to be next year? Are Sunnis and Shiites to magically stop killing each other? We’ve been waiting since 2003 for Iraqis to move forward, but each year the situation deteriorates further. If the president says our commitment to Iraq is not “open-ended,” then when does it end? Does he want another Vietnam? Does he want worse?

It’s time to declare victory – since we did what we promised to do – and go home. Future victories, which will ultimately be required in Iraq, must be achieved by Iraqis. Predominately Christian and American soldiers and Marines cannot put down a civil war inspired by extreme interpretations of Islam in an Arab country.

For this president to use the White House as the setting for a political pep rally in which he implied that those Americans against a never-ending misadventure in the Middle East are somehow opposed to troops in the field is disgusting. We shouldn’t be surprised. But even after the last six-plus years, it’s still appalling to see the office of the presidency degraded and cheapened in such a manner.

According to a Gallup Poll conducted last weekend, 80 percent of Americans support requiring troops to meet strict readiness standards before deploying to Iraq. Another 60 percent support ending American involvement in the Iraqis’ war no later than next fall. Are these many millions of American citizens, Mr. President, somehow less patriotic than the shrinking minority who support your reckless and dangerous policies?

If Bush is truly committed to funding the troops, he’ll sign the legislation Congress sends to him. If he doesn’t the responsibility for what happens next is squarely on his shoulders.

Christopher Truscott can be reached at chris.truscott@gmail.com. He agrees with Nancy Pelosi. The president really needs to “calm down.”