Better Late Than Never.
Los Angeles Times: U.S. Starts Laying Groundwork for Significant Troop Pullout From Iraq
U.S. Starts Laying Groundwork for Significant Troop Pullout From Iraq
By Paul Richter and Tyler Marshall
November 26, 2005WASHINGTON - Even as debate over the Iraq war continues to rage, signs are emerging of a convergence of opinion on how the Bush administration might begin to exit the conflict.
In a departure from previous statements, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this week that the training of Iraqi soldiers had advanced so far that the current number of U.S. troops in the country probably would not be needed much longer.
President Bush will give a major speech Wednesday at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., in which aides say he is expected to herald the improved readiness of Iraqi troops, which he has identified as the key condition for pulling out U.S. forces.
The administration's pivot on the issue comes as the White House is seeking to relieve enormous pressure by war opponents. The camp includes liberals, moderates and old-line conservatives who are uneasy with the costly and uncertain nation-building effort.
Pivot? I'd expect a more harsh term from a so-called liberal media.
That said, there's increasingly little ground inbetween the anti-war crowd and that of the Bush administration, which makes it all the more confounding as to why the protester class continue to set their clocks to Cindy Sheehan's 15 minutes of fame as well as the administrations' inherent (and increasing) shrillness in attacking anyone who so much as appears to disagree with them.
That doesn't seem to stop the partisan lobs for some reason, though. It's as if neither side would be completely content unless troops started coming back home according to each side's terms.
More troubling is the divide identified by Michael O'Hanlon: that between an optimistic military leadership and an increasingly pessimistic (if not fatalistic) civilian leadership of the military. We almost had a conversation about this on Meet the Press, save for Senator Warner's artful dodging:
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Warner, as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, do you believe we can continue to have 150,000 troops in Iraq over the next two years?SEN. JOHN WARNER, (R-VA): I certainly do, but more importantly, yesterday, Joe, I took your article, which I've got right here, and I went over it with Pete Pace word by word--chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And he said, "That's inaccurate, that assumption." He said, "We can do it. And we will do it." We've got estimates, if we--the ground condition's justified, as the president said, to pull down. We've got an option to increase the forces. Now, we will go from 158,000 to around 138,000 shortly after the elections, assuming the ground situation covers it. But my good friend here and I differ strongly. This article is entitled "Timetable." We should not be establishing any timetable with regard to our withdrawal.
MR. RUSSERT: Senator, then why did you introduce the resolution? And words are important.
SEN. WARNER: Yes.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you what your resolution said that Senator Biden referred to: "...calendar year 2006 should be a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with Iraqi security forces taking the lead for the security of a free and sovereign Iraq, thereby creating the conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq... the Administration needs to explain to Congress and the American people its strategy for the successful completion of the mission in Iraq."
Why was that necessary? Has the administration not been explaining its strategy?
SEN. WARNER: Short answer to it: I felt it was very important to strike a bipartisan note. You know that famous phrase, "Check politics at the water's edge"--it was given at the conclusion of World War II by one of our great Republican senators. I feel that very strongly. Joe Bi--excuse me--Joe Lieberman joined me on the floor in that statement. But here we are. We made a decision and I accept responsibility not to have a resolution of our own and then go against Carl Levin's resolution. Let us try and take Carl Levin's amendment, which I did, mending it, taking out the timetable language, leaving that in, and I did that for a very important reason. In order to get the bipartisan vote, we needed to show that we were tasking the administration with a more thorough reporting schedule of facts. Joe Biden refers to it in this well-written op-ed piece, if you get by the one barbed wire. And he lays out that we do need to know more on every quarterly basis, every 90 days, exactly what is taking place: the president's evaluation of the situation in Iraq...
MR. RUSSERT: Should the...
SEN. WARNER: ...what's going right, what's going wrong.
MR. RUSSERT: Should the president go before the American people with a map of Iraq and say, "Let me explain to you what is going on in the war. This area's secure. This area is difficult. This area we had captured but now the terrorists have gotten it back"? Take people through it in a very honest, straightforward way, a status report, an update.
SEN. WARNER: Tim, I'm old enough. I served in the last year of World War II in the Navy. Franklin D. Roosevelt did just exactly that. In his fireside talks, he talked with the people, he did just that. I think it would be to Bush's advantage. It would bring him closer to the people, dispel some of this concern that understandably our people have about the loss of life and limb, the enormous cost of this war to the American public, and we've got to stay firm for the next six months. It is a critical period, as Joe and I agree, in this Iraqi situation to restore full sovereignty in that country and that enables them to have their own armed forces to maintain their sovereignty.
Why was that resolution important? No answer. Should the President level with the American public? No answer. What happens if the six months go by and there's no increase in the number of Iraqis "standing up?" No answer. Why did Senator Warner meet with 10 military officers to ascertain 'ground truth' that contradicted much of what he was suggesting on this appearance? No answer.
More and more, the question is less a matter of whether the United States can finish the task at hand in Iraq, but whether the Bush administration can. Unfortunately, there's not a pause button we can just hit and wait for a more competent administration to take office. For that reason, it's rather difficult to disagree with a little competitive force that more and more Dems are offering by suggesting a phase-out of Iraq. While I may disagree very fundamentally with a timed withdrawal divorced from reality on the ground, I don't have a single problem with putting pressure on the administration to actually do the job they suggested they could do several years ago. Better late than never.