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Iraq War Debate Eclipses All Other Issues
GOP Flounders as Bush's Popularity Falls; Democrats Struggle for a Voice

By Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 20, 2005; A01



After largely avoiding the subject since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lawmakers are suddenly confronting the issue of President Bush's handling of the war. The start hasn't been pretty.

Political stunts by both parties have created an air of acrimony that is infecting the parties' entire agendas. The bitterness reached a new high -- or low -- on Friday when House Republicans forced a late-night vote on a resolution for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The resolution failed, 403 to 3, but only after members nearly came to blows when a GOP newcomer suggested a veteran Democratic military hawk was a coward.

"Iraq is now a cloud over everything," said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst specializing in Congress. "It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room."

"I feel like every morning, I wake up, get a concrete block and have to walk around with it all day," said first-term Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who came to the Senate with an ambitious agenda to overhaul Social Security and the tax code. "We can't even address the issues."

After simmering on Congress's back burner for months, the Iraq war debate has eclipsed every other issue in the capital, slowing progress on some matters while stopping it on others. The GOP-led House and Senate are struggling to pass major tax legislation, an extension of the USA Patriot Act and a broad budget-cutting bill. Bush's top 2005 domestic agenda item -- revamping Social Security -- has sunk from sight, and more recently his bipartisan panel on tax reform barely made a ripple when it issued recommendations.

GOP leaders view items such as the Patriot Act and the budget as too vital to fail in the end, but every endeavor is now made more difficult by the fracturing over Iraq -- and just when the 2006 congressional elections begin to loom. Republicans have lost their anchor of the past five years -- Bush's popularity -- while Democrats are struggling to find their voice on the war. Both sides cannot dally for long, said Peter D. Hart, a Democratic pollster.

"Iraq is now the dominant issue that is affecting voters, and it's affecting Bush's ratings," Hart said. "The public has reached a firm, fixed position on Iraq, and it's not going to change: This is not going to come to a successful conclusion, so how do we figure out how to get out of Iraq?"

Until recently, only Democrats seemed to struggle to find their voice on Iraq, while Republicans were virtually united in backing Bush's policies. But when the 2,000th U.S. military death there coincided with troubling revelations about prewar intelligence and Bush's plunging approval ratings, Republican cohesion began to fray.

Political developments in Iraq, such as the adoption of a new constitution, cannot overcome the impression left by the daily reports of suicide bombers and the milestone of 2,000 deaths among U.S. servicemen, pollsters and political analysts say.

Public opinion has, in turn, emboldened Democrats to sharpen their attacks, and it has freed some Republicans -- especially Northeastern moderates -- to chart a new political course that separates them from the White House but wreaks havoc with the GOP's legislative agenda.

"The central new development is the decomposition of the president's support in Congress," said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University congressional expert. "I think there is a very acute realization on the part of Republicans that they no longer can hitch their careers to his popularity. That, combined with the new aggressiveness by the Democrats, means you're seeing basically a Bush agenda that is largely being derailed."

Politicians tried to calm the waters roiled by Friday's House maneuvering. GOP leaders had seized upon an impassioned call Thursday by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, hoping to put Democrats on the spot by rushing a resolution to the floor calling on the administration to bring the troops home now. The ensuing bitter debate brought out calls for calm even before it was over.

"Today's debate in the House of Representatives shows the need for bipartisanship on the war in Iraq, instead of more political posturing," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), said in a statement Friday night hailing the bipartisan Senate vote earlier in the week that called on the administration to share more information on the war's progress and to make 2006 a year of significant transition away from U.S. military action.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said yesterday that the result of the debate was positive, an unambiguous, bipartisan show of resolve for the war effort. Only three Democrats, Reps. Jose E. Serrano (N.Y.), Cynthia McKinney (Ga.) and Robert Wexler (Fla.), voted for the withdrawal resolution. But Pence too noted the acrimony of the discourse. "We cannot do democracy without a heavy dose of civility," he said.

The acrimony, and the all-encompassing nature of the war debate, are having a broad impact. Bush's recent globe-trotting, in Latin America and Asia, has produced more stories on dissent over Iraq than on free trade, economic cooperation and China's move toward democracy.

When Bush's bipartisan panel on tax reform issued its recent recommendations to simplify the tax code, proposals to eliminate deductions for home mortgage interest and state and local taxes might have been expected to create an uproar. Instead, the panel's report barely made a peep.

The president's plan to trim promised Social Security benefits and add private investment accounts disappeared. When Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said any reform plan is dead until 2009, the comments were hardly noted.

Other high-profile legislative priorities have been slowed by a lack of attention from the preoccupied leadership. Congressional aides released details last week from a compromise reached over the extension of the Patriot Act, the controversial anti-terrorism law passed weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But the deal was not acted on quickly, and in ensuing days, provisions of the compromise attracted enough negative attention that a planned vote on the measure was delayed until at least next month.

House Republicans took weeks to garner enough votes to pass a five-year, $50 billion budget-cutting measure full of high-priority policy changes Bush has requested for welfare, Medicaid, agriculture supports and other entitlement programs. The Iraq-induced plunge in Bush's popularity emboldened moderates to oppose the most conservative parts of the bill.

On Friday, after the measure passed by two votes, Republican leaders hoped to highlight the victory at a "get out of town" rally. But they swamped their message by hastily putting the Iraq pullout resolution to a vote. That move also precluded an expected vote on a five-year, $56 billion measure to extend some of Bush's most prized, first-term tax cuts.

Rothenberg says such confusion does not bode well for the political fortunes of the beleaguered GOP. "The public doesn't like mess," he said. "When they realize things are messy, they get frustrated, and they arrive at the general conclusion that you blame the people you figure are in charge."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Hill vs. Spending: Two 800-Pound Gorillas

By Shailagh Murray

After several years of chaos, House and Senate leaders are seeking to restore order to the spending process as part of a broader effort to impose fiscal discipline. But this year's strict budget limits have made negotiations more contentious than usual and exposed stark differences between Republicans and Democrats over the government's priorities.

House GOP leaders were dealt a rare blow Thursday, when moderate Republicans teamed up with Democrats to reject a major labor, health and education appropriations bill that would have reduced spending by $1.4 billion this year. Some lawmakers complained that the $142.5 billion measure did not contain money for many of the special pork-barrel projects they sought for their home districts.

Now the bill must be returned to negotiators for more fine-tuning, as Democrats and moderate Republicans press for more funding for disease research and subsidies to help low-income people pay their heating bills.

The impasse highlights the challenge of Republicans in seeking to satisfy conservative calls for a return to fiscal discipline while coping with mounting demands for relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina and staggering costs associated with the war in Iraq. Republicans say they are up to the task, citing the House vote early Friday that narrowly approved a five-year budget plan to cut $50 billion of entitlement spending.

"What it does is start to turn down the escalating costs . . . for our children and our grandchildren," said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). "One of the things that we cannot leave to that next generation is a huge deficit that they can't afford."

But the GOP leadership is finding the going tough simply to complete the dozen fiscal 2006 spending bills essential to keep the government operating.

For example, the $445 billion defense spending bill has become entangled in a rash of disputes in recent weeks, including one over Sen. John McCain's drive to crack down on the torture of terrorism suspects being held in U.S. prison facilities. Because it may be the last appropriations bill completed this year, the defense measure may attract many last-minute provisions, including an across-the-board cut in federal agencies' spending that House conservatives are seeking.

Before they left town Friday for a two-week recess, lawmakers approved a resolution to keep the government funds flowing until Dec. 17, including money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One spending bill that breezed through the House and the Senate on Friday would provide $45.4 billion in military construction funds and veterans benefits. Medical services, including mental health treatment and prosthetic limb research, would receive funding increases, and new housing would be provided for nearly 15,000 military families.

The popularity of military-related programs is one reason the across-the-board cut is likely to meet stiff opposition. "We can't allow it to happen," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who serves on the Appropriations Committee.

A second bill, containing $65.9 billion for the transportation, Treasury and housing departments, was also approved by the House and the Senate on Friday. But that one had been mired in conflict until final passage.

It had been held up in part because of a provision regarding the jurisdiction of lawsuits directed at moving companies for overcharging. Another controversial measure would permit Southwest Airlines to fly to Missouri from Dallas's Love Field, part of a broader bid by the low-fare carrier to repeal a 1979 law, supported by rival American Airlines, that limits flights from Love Field.

The bill also shifts $450 million in funding for two Alaska bridge projects, including one that gained notoriety as the "Bridge to Nowhere" because of its remote location.

Amtrak would receive $1.3 billion under the bill, about $100 million more than last year. It is a blow to President Bush, who had sought deep cuts to the troubled passenger service. The bill would require Amtrak to reduce its operating subsidy, including savings in food and beverage service, first-class service and commuter rail fees.

Lawmakers are so desperate to squeeze extra funds in the giant health and education bill that they are considering shifting money for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which provides heating bill subsidies for poor people, into an emergency account, to free up funds for other programs.

"This is not the way really to do business," said Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa), a senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. "These are not normal times, however."

The squeeze on health and education programs even elicited bitter complaints from the bill's Senate author, Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

"Among many tough choices in this job, this is the toughest one I have made in my tenure in the Senate," said Specter, who opted to eliminate $1 billion in special projects from the bill, rather than further reduce home heating subsidizes and other high priorities.

Many Republicans view the health and education bill as an embodiment of Democratic social policies, and were content with its tight margins. "I'm not ashamed of this bill at all," Rep. Kay Granger (R-Tex.) said.

Democrats saw the $1.5 billion reduction from last year's funding levels as a damaging consequence of the GOP drive to shrink government. "This is a growing country. It has growing problems. It has growing opportunities," said Rep. David R. Obey (Wis.), senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. "If this bill does not grow with it, then we lose ground."

Unlike the health and education bill, which was stripped of special projects, the transportation and housing package included money for many perks. The $8.47 billion allocated for the Federal Transit Administration would pay for rural transportation assistance, capital investment grants, buses and bus-related facilities, and commuter initiatives.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development was funded at $38.2 billion, about $2.1 billion over last year's level. The bill would provide money for several public housing-related programs that Bush proposed axing. A lead abatement initiative that was targeted for elimination wound up getting $48 million. The HOPE VI program for revitalizing distressed units received $100 million, although Bush had wanted to kill it. The bill also rejected a White House bid to rescind $143 million from the program.

Bush had proposed eliminating the Community Development Block Grant Program, but the bill included $4.2 billion for it, and rejected an effort to transfer its functions to the Department of Department.

Congress gave itself a $3,100 pay raise in the transportation and housing bill, and provided a cost-of-living adjustment for federal judges. One Treasury Department provision that negotiators reluctantly omitted from earlier legislation would have loosened agricultural trade barriers with Cuba. The White House had threatened a veto unless the Cuba language was dropped.

"The administration is flat dead-wrong on that provision," complained Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), who wrote the Senate version of the transportation bill.


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What I Knew Before the Invasion

By Bob Graham

In the past week President Bush has twice attacked Democrats for being hypocrites on the Iraq war. "[M]ore than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," he said.

The president's attacks are outrageous. Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize him to take the nation to war. Most of them, though, like their Republican colleagues, did so in the legitimate belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace -- that if Hussein was not disarmed, the smoking gun would become a mushroom cloud.

The president has undermined trust. No longer will the members of Congress be entitled to accept his veracity. Caveat emptor has become the word. Every member of Congress is on his or her own to determine the truth.

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq war, I probably had as much access to the intelligence on which the war was predicated as any other member of Congress.

I, too, presumed the president was being truthful -- until a series of events undercut that confidence.

In February 2002, after a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan, the commanding officer, Gen. Tommy Franks, told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq -- a war more than a year away. Even at this early date, the White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda.

In the early fall of 2002, a joint House-Senate intelligence inquiry committee, which I co-chaired, was in the final stages of its investigation of what happened before Sept. 11. As the unclassified final report of the inquiry documented, several failures of intelligence contributed to the tragedy. But as of October 2002, 13 months later, the administration was resisting initiating any substantial action to understand, much less fix, those problems.

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE.

Tenet objected, saying that his people were too committed to other assignments to analyze Saddam Hussein's capabilities and will to use chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. We insisted, and three weeks later the community produced a classified NIE.

There were troubling aspects to this 90-page document. While slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.

Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.

The American people needed to know these reservations, and I requested that an unclassified, public version of the NIE be prepared. On Oct. 4, Tenet presented a 25-page document titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs." It represented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed them, avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version. Its conclusions, such as "If Baghdad acquired sufficient weapons-grade fissile material from abroad, it could make a nuclear weapon within a year," underscored the White House's claim that exactly such material was being provided from Africa to Iraq.

From my advantaged position, I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth -- or even had an interest in knowing the truth.

On Oct. 11, I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptor. Most of my colleagues could not.

The writer is a former Democratic senator from Florida. He is currently a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics.


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Against the Tide on Iraq

By David S. Broder

As demonstrated by the fierce White House counterattack in recent days on critics of the Iraq war, no one has more riding on the outcome of that war than President Bush, the man who sent U.S. forces into Baghdad.

But in political terms, the man next most affected by the outcome of the fighting could be Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

No one outside the administration has been more adamant or outspoken in arguing that there is no substitute for victory in Iraq than has McCain, the Naval Academy graduate and survivor of years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. Others in the field of potential 2008 presidential candidates also support the war, but for none of them does it represent as large a gamble.

McCain's unique credential as a presidential candidate is his hard-earned reputation as someone who rises above partisanship. While burnishing his lifelong Republican credentials by his support of Bush in two campaigns, McCain has established himself as the favorite of independents in poll after poll while enjoying the approval of many Democrats for his advocacy of governmental reforms.

Unscarred in his psyche by the wounds that the 1960s and '70s left on a whole generation of baby-boomer politicians, McCain, who was born in 1936, a full decade before the earliest of the boomers, is a throwback to an earlier generation of leaders who recognized the value of building partnerships across party lines.

He has genuine friendships with Democratic colleagues, and his life is marked by successful efforts at personal reconciliation with people who have been on the opposite side of important policy debates.

Amid signs that the voters are sick of excessive partisanship and looking for a leader who really is, as Bush claimed to be, "a uniter, not a divider," McCain has surged to the top of any list of potential 2008 candidates.

But there is nothing nuanced about his position on the Iraq war. In speeches on and off the Senate floor and in countless television interviews, McCain has argued that it was right to remove Saddam Hussein and that the United States and its allies must remain in Iraq until conditions are created for a stable, secure Iraqi government.

When I interviewed him in his office the other day, he even used the pejorative phrase "cut and run" to describe those now calling for a timetable for withdrawal of American troops. Time and again, he argued that the consequences of leaving Iraq prematurely would be a factional or religious struggle within that country that could lead to a radical Islamic regime destabilizing the Middle East and threatening more terrorist attacks.

The striking thing about McCain's position, which has not wavered from the beginning of the debate about going to war, is that no one has been more critical of the conduct of the war than the senator from Arizona.

As he reminded me, when he made his first trip to Iraq after the capture of Baghdad, he encountered a dozen junior officers of the American and British forces who told him in vivid terms how they were hampered by the shortage of troops. At breakfast with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after he returned, he urged Rumsfeld to bolster the manpower in Iraq, only to be told, "The generals are not asking for more troops" -- as if, McCain added scornfully, "any commander is ever going to make that kind of request."

The misjudgments, McCain said, have continued down to the present. He could not believe, he said, that Rumsfeld pulled Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, the man who finally organized the first training program for the Iraqi army to show some positive results, out of Iraq this summer for a prestigious but hardly vital assignment at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

When I saw McCain, he had not yet read James Fallows's cover story in the December Atlantic magazine, titled "Why Iraq Has No Army." In an amply documented and deeply disturbing account, Fallows shows how hollow has been the administration claim to "standing up" Iraqi security forces capable of replacing the U.S. troops. Fallows also argues that doing so at this point would require fundamental shifts in Pentagon priorities -- on everything from troop rotation to the allocation of weapons budgets -- that are not likely to come from Rumsfeld or Bush.

Much of McCain's critique of the management of the war is echoed in Fallows's argument. Nonetheless, McCain insists that victory is still possible -- and that it is vital. Majorities of both independents and Democrats now say the war was a mistake. McCain disagrees. As is his custom, he seems perfectly willing to rest his political future on his belief in his own principles.

davidbroder@washpost.com


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Session Exposes Political Risks Ahead for G.O.P.

Carl Hulse
Published: November 20, 2005
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 - It was a bitter and fitting final note for a discordant Congress.

The ugly debate in the House on Friday over the Iraq war served as an emotional send-off for a holiday recess, capturing perfectly the political tensions coursing through the House and Senate in light of President Bush's slumping popularity, serious party policy fights, spreading ethics investigations and the approach of crucial midterm elections in less than a year.

As majority leader, Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri is in the eye of the Congressional storm.

Capitol Hill was always certain to be swept up in brutal political gamesmanship as lawmakers headed into 2006 - the midpoint of this second presidential term and, perhaps, a chance for Democrats to cut into Republican majorities or even seize power in one chamber or the other.

The ferocity of the fight in the House over a measure to withdraw American troops from Iraq shows that the war may command the high ground in the coming electoral contest. And the course of events in Iraq - whether a new government takes hold, whether violence continues, whether American troops are still committed in large numbers and being killed by the scores each month - is likely to be of prime political consequence here.

But when lawmakers return next month they face other immediate challenges that also carry substantial political risks. Some are matters related to the war, like the continuing debate on the treatment of detainees in the campaign against global terrorism. Others are the kind of domestic pocketbook issues that Congress must deal with every year - including contentious tax and spending measures - but have been impossible to resolve this year, even with one party in control of both houses.

Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, said he thought the war debate was worthwhile because it sent a reassuring message to troops in Iraq. But he found the tone "absolutely unnecessary, demeaning and potentially destructive."

"We have so many huge problems, and it is frustrating to somebody like myself when we are reduced to partisan fire with bazookas," said Mr. Foley, who added that the House was as polarized as he had seen it during his decade in office.

Indeed, issues like overhauling Social Security, changing the tax code, dealing with illegal immigration or addressing high energy costs were often overshadowed - and sometimes put aside - because of the continuing debate over the war and its costs. As members of Congress returned Saturday to their home districts, it seemed that the fallout from Friday night's showdown would remain a hot topic, at least for now.

Among developments that have knocked Republicans badly off course and provided opportunities for Democrats, who still have problems of their own: The botched response to Hurricane Katrina. The indictment of Representative Tom DeLay. Soaring fuel costs. A failed Supreme Court nomination. Federal charges against a vice-presidential aide in a case related to prewar intelligence. Growing public unease about the war and its death toll. Off-year election victories by Democrats.

The litany has members of Congress taking stock of their own political fortunes and acting accordingly.

"Bad poll numbers on your side unite your opponents and divide you a little bit," said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, a man in the eye of the Congressional storm as he fills in for Mr. DeLay in trying to hold House Republicans together.

Both of the responses cited by Mr. Blunt were on display this week in an unusually messy Congressional windup. United Democrats forced House Republicans to look solely to their own membership to win approval of spending and budget measures that carried a political price given their reductions in spending on an array of social programs - cuts ready-made for campaign attacks.

As a result, some Republicans chose to part company with their colleagues. Twenty-two defectors joined with Democrats to send a major health and education spending bill to a stunning defeat, the first such loss in a decade for the take-no-prisoners Republican majority.

Fourteen Republicans opposed $50 billion in spending cuts over five years despite major concessions by their leadership to win moderate support. They acted partly out of fear that a vote for the cuts would expose them to Democratic political attacks, a fear well founded. Within hours of the vote, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out news releases to the districts of 50 lawmakers who backed the measure to make sure voters back home heard that their representatives had "blindly rubberstamped" the leadership's plan.

The rising political animosity was evident in the tone of the House debate on the fiscal bills and Iraq. The chamber rang with name-calling, taunts, ridicule and jeers. The exchanges over the war after Representative John P. Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, called for a rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq were poisonous as bottled-up sentiment on the conflict boiled over. Some lawmakers saw it as a new low.

"We can do better," Representative Tom Osborne, Republican of Nebraska, scolded his colleagues.

The troop withdrawal measure, brought forward by Republicans to put Democrats on the spot, was defeated, 403 to 3, late Friday night.

"It is a reality that no one is finished debating the war," Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia, vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, said Saturday.

But he said Republicans forced the vote out of frustration with Democratic tactics. "We had just had it with Democrats running around saying President Bush lied. It was time for us to call their bluff," he said.

Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, called Friday night "a sad spectacle."

He said the effort to embarrass Mr. Murtha would do more to galvanize than dissipate critics of the war. "If those who say 'stay the course' want to attack the character of people like Jack Murtha or question the patriotism of anyone who is raising questions about the war, then they are going to have a fight on their hands, and that was apparent last night," Mr. Holt said.

"If in the months ahead when somebody goes back to write the history of the war in Iraq," he added, "they will point to the Murtha statement as a key moment in changing course."

Representative Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who was involved in a heated floor exchange with Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., Democrat of Tennessee, attributed much of the vitriol to sleeplessness because of the late nights of the contentious budget fight. "Add to that the emotional nature of the issues we were debating and the fuse was lit," Mr. Tancredo said.

The atmosphere and progress in the Senate, often the graveyard of legislation, were noticeably better than in the House. Republican senators set their sights lower on spending cuts and approved their budget bill weeks ago. They were able to attract significant Democratic support for tax cuts and even had a bipartisan vote pressing the administration to move more aggressively to secure Iraq to allow a troop withdrawal.

But the Senate has serious divisions of its own. Just a few months ago, it was on the brink of a historic rules showdown over judicial filibusters, a subject that could resurface should Democrats choose to block Mr. Bush's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. Democrats also infuriated Republicans by forcing a closed-door session on the use of prewar intelligence, and ill feelings linger over that episode.

Though Democrats see political openings, they have handicaps. The battle over Mr. Murtha's proposal showed that the party remained troubled over its approach to the war in Iraq, aware of vulnerabilities on national security issues and the role of Democrats in approving the use of force in Iraq. Democrats have yet to produce their own policy argument for why they should be awarded control of the House and Senate, preferring to concentrate for now on exploiting the Republican struggles.

And Republicans do not have easy days ahead. When the House and Senate return in December, they will have to reconcile differing budget bills or face the humiliating prospect of falling short of the cuts sought by conservatives.

What may be equally troubling for Republicans is the filing on Friday of a criminal conspiracy charge against a former senior Republican House aide, Michael Scanlon. Mr. Scanlon was once a spokesman for Mr. DeLay and was a partner of Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who is the subject of a federal investigation and had close ties to some House Republicans. The charges hint at potential legal exposure for lawmakers who were wined and dined by the two, adding to Republican ethics cases.

Republicans acknowledge that recent months have been trying. But they think they can hold off Democrats with the advantages of incumbency and by producing legislation that appeals to their conservative base and the business community while propelling what they say is a thriving, underappreciated economy.

Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said he remained confident of the outcome of next year's elections. "We're going to be in the majority," Mr. Reynolds said.

Others say the political future may be out of the hands of either party.

"I think the maneuvers of this week probably aren't going to help either side in the election," said John J. Pitney Jr., professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California. "What's really going to matter is what happens on the ground in Iraq. If there is good news out of the ground in Iraq, then Republicans will benefit. If there is bad news, then they will have even deeper problems."

"Bombs in Baghdad," Mr. Pitney said, "are going to have a lot more impact than speeches in Washington."

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November 20, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
One War Lost, Another to Go
By FRANK RICH
IF anyone needs further proof that we are racing for the exits in Iraq, just follow the bouncing ball that is Rick Santorum. A Republican leader in the Senate and a true-blue (or red) Iraq hawk, he has long slobbered over President Bush, much as Ed McMahon did over Johnny Carson. But when Mr. Bush went to Mr. Santorum's home state of Pennsylvania to give his Veterans Day speech smearing the war's critics as unpatriotic, the senator was M.I.A.

Mr. Santorum preferred to honor a previous engagement more than 100 miles away. There he told reporters for the first time that "maybe some blame" for the war's "less than optimal" progress belonged to the White House. This change of heart had nothing to do with looming revelations of how the new Iraqi "democracy" had instituted Saddam-style torture chambers. Or with the spiraling investigations into the whereabouts of nearly $9 billion in unaccounted-for taxpayers' money from the American occupation authority. Or with the latest spike in casualties. Mr. Santorum was instead contemplating his own incipient political obituary written the day before: a poll showing him 16 points down in his re-election race. No sooner did he stiff Mr. Bush in Pennsylvania than he did so again in Washington, voting with a 79-to-19 majority on a Senate resolution begging for an Iraq exit strategy. He was joined by all but one (Jon Kyl) of the 13 other Republican senators running for re-election next year. They desperately want to be able to tell their constituents that they were against the war after they were for it.

They know the voters have decided the war is over, no matter what symbolic resolutions are passed or defeated in Congress nor how many Republicans try to Swift-boat Representative John Murtha, the marine hero who wants the troops out. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey last week found that the percentage (52) of Americans who want to get out of Iraq fast, in 12 months or less, is even larger than the percentage (48) that favored a quick withdrawal from Vietnam when that war's casualty toll neared 54,000 in the apocalyptic year of 1970. The Ohio State political scientist John Mueller, writing in Foreign Affairs, found that "if history is any indication, there is little the Bush administration can do to reverse this decline." He observed that Mr. Bush was trying to channel L. B. J. by making "countless speeches explaining what the effort in Iraq is about, urging patience and asserting that progress is being made. But as was also evident during Woodrow Wilson's campaign to sell the League of Nations to the American public, the efficacy of the bully pulpit is much overrated."

Mr. Bush may disdain timetables for our pullout, but, hello, there already is one, set by the Santorums of his own party: the expiration date for a sizable American presence in Iraq is Election Day 2006. As Mr. Mueller says, the decline in support for the war won't reverse itself. The public knows progress is not being made, no matter how many times it is told that Iraqis will soon stand up so we can stand down.

On the same day the Senate passed the resolution rebuking Mr. Bush on the war, Martha Raddatz of ABC News reported that "only about 700 Iraqi troops" could operate independently of the U.S. military, 27,000 more could take a lead role in combat "only with strong support" from our forces and the rest of the 200,000-odd trainees suffered from a variety of problems, from equipment shortages to an inability "to wake up when told" or follow orders.

But while the war is lost both as a political matter at home and a practical matter in Iraq, the exit strategy being haggled over in Washington will hardly mark the end of our woes. Few Americans will cry over the collapse of the administration's vainglorious mission to make Iraq a model of neocon nation-building. But, as some may dimly recall, there is another war going on as well - against Osama bin Laden and company.

One hideous consequence of the White House's Big Lie - fusing the war of choice in Iraq with the war of necessity that began on 9/11 - is that the public, having rejected one, automatically rejects the other. That's already happening. The percentage of Americans who now regard fighting terrorism as a top national priority is either in the single or low double digits in every poll. Thus the tragic bottom line of the Bush catastrophe: the administration has at once increased the ranks of jihadists by turning Iraq into a new training ground and recruitment magnet while at the same time exhausting America's will and resources to confront that expanded threat.

We have arrived at "the worst of all possible worlds," in the words of Daniel Benjamin, Richard Clarke's former counterterrorism colleague, with whom I talked last week. No one speaks more eloquently to this point than Mr. Benjamin and Steven Simon, his fellow National Security Council alum. They saw the Qaeda threat coming before most others did in the 1990's, and their riveting new book, "The Next Attack," is the best argued and most thoroughly reported account of why, in their opening words, "we are losing" the war against the bin Laden progeny now.

"The Next Attack" is prescient to a scary degree. "If bin Laden is the Robin Hood of jihad," the authors write, then Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "has been its Horatio Alger, and Iraq his field of dreams." The proof arrived spectacularly this month with the Zarqawi-engineered suicide bombings of three hotels in Amman. That attack, Mr. Benjamin wrote in Slate, "could soon be remembered as the day that the spillover of violence from Iraq became a major affliction for the Middle East." But not remembered in America. Thanks to the confusion sown by the Bush administration, the implications for us in this attack, like those in London and Madrid, are quickly forgotten, if they were noticed in the first place. What happened in Amman is just another numbing bit of bad news that we mentally delete along with all the other disasters we now label "Iraq."

Only since his speech about "Islamo-fascism" in early October has Mr. Bush started trying to make distinctions between the "evildoers" of Saddam's regime and the Islamic radicals who did and do directly threaten us. But even if anyone was still listening to this president, it would be too little and too late. The only hope for getting Americans to focus on the war we can't escape is to clear the decks by telling the truth about the war of choice in Iraq: that it is making us less safe, not more, and that we have to learn from its mistakes and calculate the damage it has caused as we reboot and move on.

Mr. Bush is incapable of such candor. In the speech Mr. Santorum skipped on Veterans Day, the president lashed out at his critics for trying "to rewrite the history" of how the war began. Then he rewrote the history of the war, both then and now. He boasted of America's "broad and coordinated homeland defense" even as the members of the bipartisan 9/11 commission were preparing to chastise the administration's inadequate efforts to prevent actual nuclear W.M.D.'s, as opposed to Saddam's fictional ones, from finding their way to terrorists. Mr. Bush preened about how "we're standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes" even as we were hearing new reports of how we outsource detainees to such regimes to be tortured.

And once again he bragged about the growing readiness of Iraqi troops, citing "nearly 90 Iraqi army battalions fighting the terrorists alongside our forces." But as James Fallows confirms in his exhaustive report on "Why Iraq Has No Army" in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly, America would have to commit to remaining in Iraq for many years to "bring an Iraqi army to maturity." If we're not going to do that, Mr. Fallows concludes, America's only alternative is to "face the stark fact that it has no orderly way out of Iraq, and prepare accordingly."

THAT'S the alternative that has already been chosen, brought on not just by the public's irreversible rejection of the war, but also by the depleted state of our own broken military forces; they are falling short of recruitment goals across the board by as much as two-thirds, the Government Accountability Office reported last week. We must prepare accordingly for what's to come. To do so we need leaders, whatever the political party, who can look beyond our nonorderly withdrawal from Iraq next year to the mess that will remain once we're on our way out. Whether it's countering the havoc inflicted on American interests internationally by Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo or overhauling and redeploying our military, intelligence and homeland security operations to confront the enemy we actually face, there's an enormous job to be done.

The arguments about how we got into Mr. Bush's war and exactly how we'll get out are also important. But the damage from this fiasco will be even greater if those debates obscure the urgency of the other war we are losing, one that will be with us long after we've left the quagmire in Iraq.



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As War Debate Ignites, Democrats Seek a Unified Message
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By Ronald Brownstein
Times Staff Writer

November 19 2005, 6:27 PM PST

WASHINGTON -- Last week's emotional congressional debates over Iraq demonstrated both the rise of anti-war sentiment among Democrats -- and the challenge the party faces in converting that impulse into a unified alternative to President Bush.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=8081

More Wheels Spin Off Iraq Policy

by Jim Lobe
In a major new blow to President George W. Bush's determination to "stay the course" in Iraq, an influential Democratic hawk with close ties to the uniformed military has called for Washington to begin withdrawing U.S. troops immediately.

In an emotional press conference Thursday morning, Rep. John Murtha, a former officer in the Marines and the ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee of the House of Representatives, announced he will soon introduce legislation requiring US ground troops to be "redeploy(ed)" out of Iraq and to send a "quick-reaction" force into the region for possible use against "terrorist" camps in their place.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised," he said. "It is a flawed policy wrapped in an illusion... It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people, or the Persian Gulf region."

As a longtime Democratic hawk and staunch supporter of the uniformed military, Murtha, who originally supported the Iraq war, will make it much easier for fellow Democrats and some Republicans to challenge the Bush administration's continuing calls to "stay the course" in Iraq.

Even before his statement, Republican lawmakers were voicing growing fears that Iraq threatened their hold on both houses of Congress in next November's mid-term Congressional elections. In a major setback to Bush and an indication of his party's rising anxiety, a majority of Republicans voted Tuesday to require the administration to submit detailed reports about progress toward withdrawing US troops over the next year and replacing them with Iraqi forces.

The New York Times called the resolution "a vote of no confidence on the war in Iraq," while its sponsor, Senate Armed Forces Committee chairman John Warner himself described his amendment as a blunt warning to Iraqis that Washington had "done (its) part" and was fast running out of patience.

Democrats, who until recently had been deeply divided about what to do in Iraq, have increasingly taken the political offensive over growing public sentiment (57 percent, according to one poll last week) that the administration manipulated the intelligence in order to rally the country to war, a charge that Murtha endorsed Thursday.

Led by Bush, the administration has tried to mount a counteroffensive by calling Democratic charges that it deliberately misled the country into war "irresponsible" and deeply damaging to the morale of the some 150,000 troops currently in Iraq.

But its efforts so far have appeared largely ineffective in changing public opinion, in part because last month's indictment in connection with the "outing" of a covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer on perjury charges of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has added weight to charges that intelligence was indeed manipulated.

Added to this are the widely publicized claims by former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, ret. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, that Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld led a "cabal" that circumvented normal bureaucratic and intelligence channels in order to take the country to war.

Nor did it help that a prominent moderate Republican and likely 2008 presidential candidate, Sen. Chuck Hagel, criticized the White House's counteroffensive for "dividing the country." In a particularly damaging comment in a major policy address this week, Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran who has voiced alarm over developments in Iraq over the past two years, noted that Congress should have spoken out earlier during the Vietnam War.

While the administration has appeared flummoxed and on the defensive over the charges that it manipulated intelligence before the war, Democrats have appeared increasingly unified behind proposals to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq after the Dec. 15 elections there according to a timetable that would see most of them leave by the end of next year.

In the last two weeks, both Sen. John Kerry and his 2004 vice-presidential running-mate, former Sen. John Edwards, have publicly admitted that they now regret their votes in October 2002 to give Bush the authority to go to war, and offered support for legislation that would at least establish benchmarks for withdrawing troops.

In yet another important step in the Democrats' evolution, former President Bill Clinton declared for the first time this week that the decision to go to war in Iraq was "wrong," thus presumably preparing the ground for other Democrats, particularly his Senator-wife, Hillary, who has until now opposed withdrawal, to move in a new direction.

It is in this context that Murtha's remarks will add to the momentum in favor of withdrawal. Indeed, Murtha has historically been so close to the military that many political observers will conclude that he is speaking for senior officers who have grown increasingly convinced that the war has been a major strategic mistake.

(A survey of military leaders released Thursday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found they were roughly evenly split on the wisdom of going to war in the first place and on whether or not the Iraq war was helpful in the larger "war on terrorism.")

Warning that the "future of our military is at risk," Murtha said that he had concluded after numerous trips to Iraq that "our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency" and that "we have become a catalyst for violence."

"I believe we need to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis," he said. "I believe that before the Iraqi elections, the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice that the United States will immediately redeploy."

That redeployment, which partly echoes a more comprehensive plan put forward by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a think tank consisting mainly of former senior Clinton administration officials, in late September, calls for creating a quick-reaction force to be deployed in the region for intervention against "terrorist camps."

It also seeks an over-the-horizon Marine presence that could be deployed quickly, presumably to prevent incursions by foreign forces into Iraq in the event of a widening civil conflict. Murtha also called for intensified diplomatic and political efforts to help stabilize Iraq.

"Our military has done everything that has been asked of them," he said. "The US cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home."

This is part of the Kool-Aid high they've been on since Bush took office...



... and this is the most troubling things about everything else going on. WE DON'T KNOW WHEN WE'RE AHEAD!

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/REF...LTAM&SECTION=US

Nov 18, 5:23 PM EST


Jewish Group Asks Bush to Start War's End

HOUSTON (AP) -- About 2,000 representatives of the Union for Reform Judaism asked the Bush administration Friday to provide a clear exit strategy for the war in Iraq and begin to bring some soldiers home in mid-December.

The 1.5-million member organization of the most liberal of the three major branches of Judaism voted almost unanimously for the resolution at its Houston convention, spokeswoman Emily Grotta said.

"The sentiment was clear and overwhelming," Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, union president, said in a statement. "American Jews, and all Americans, are profoundly critical of this war and they want this administration to tell us how and when it will bring our troops home."

The resolution also asks for a bipartisan independent commission to study the lesson's learned from the war, and condemns "in the strongest possible terms" the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.



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http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/WorldNF....rticleID=193743

Axis for Peace declares war on hawks
Brussels | By Mohammed Almezel, Assistant Editor | 20/11/2005 | Print this page


An international anti-Bush movement was born here yesterday to stop "the war process" and push for a new global equilibrium that would restore "respect for the law", organisers said.


Gulf News
The two-day conference in progress in Brussels.


The Axis for Peace movement, an alliance of politicians, lobbyists, analysts and intellectuals from across the globe, was declared at the end of a two-day conference held in Brussels.

The conference was organised by the Paris-based Voltaire Network, a non-profit organisation that lobbies for peaceful solutions to international disputes.

The participants signed a declaration that would be presented to the United Nations Security Council.

It urges the permanent members on the council to stop being "a tool in the hands" of the George Bush administration, Thierry Meyssan, president of the Voltaire Network, told Gulf News.

"Respect of the international law depends on the equilibrium of forces and in the past 10 years, following the fall of the Soviet Union, the remaining superpower the US has turned into a predator."

More than 150 prominent politicians, authors, musicians, journalists and peace activists from South America, Europe, Asia, the United States and the Arab world took part in the conference.

For two days, they debated questions such as the war in Iraq and the threat against Syria, neo-colonialism, the role of the United Nations, the nature of terrorism, intervention by democratic states, economic and popular sovereignty.

"The world is involved in a war process. The only possibility to stop that process is to mobilise public opinion all over the world," Meyssan added. "It is a difficult task but the conference is only the first step."

Speaking at the first day, Salim Hoss, former Lebanese prime minister said the United States cannot impose its will on other countries.

"Peace cannot be imposed on the nations; it is only established through democracy and the preservation of human values."

He added: "Peace is closely linked to the state of stability, which cannot be established but through the implementation of justice and democracy."

Hoss said that the threat of terrorism was being used as a reason to launch constant wars, without attempting to define terrorism.

"Terrorism is a hideous epidemic and should be eradicated, yet the war on terrorism is being launched without adopting a common definition of that epidemic.

"It is ironic that Israel's continuous aggressions against Arab territories in Palestine, in explicit violation of UN resolutions, are not considered terrorism; however, the Palestinians who struggle to liberate their land and regain their freedom and dignity are regarded as terrorists."

The Bush administration acts unilaterally, under its pre-emptive war doctrine to "ensure its supremacy over all continents", said Andreas von Bulow, former German state minister and member of the parliamentary intelligence oversight committee.

"All those who are against the war-mongering policies of the US must unite," said Meyssan, pointing out that the Axis for Peace will be an annual event with a permanent secretariat to unite the efforts of all anti-war activists.

The Voltaire Network for the Freedom of Expression (Reseau Voltaire) is an international association founded by Thierry Meyssan in 1994.

Established under French law, it is based in Paris. Réseau Voltaire is active in a number of social and political domains.

It publishes a daily magazine offering political analysis as well as internet sites in four languages (English, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Russian), and develops non-governmental diplomacy promoting the respect of international law.

Réseau Voltaire defends individual liberties and is religiously neutral.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Al Nisr Publishing LLC - Gulf News Online | contact editor@gulfnews.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

NEWS ANALYSIS
Democrats' War Opposition Not a United Front
Party lawmakers who have rallied around a general push to pull troops from Iraq still disagree on what remedies to offer, if any.

By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — Last week's emotional congressional debates over Iraq demonstrated the rise of antiwar sentiment among Democrats — and the challenge the party faces in converting that impulse into a unified alternative to President Bush.

Twin confrontations over Iraq, in the House and the Senate — highlighted by a ferocious House debate that followed a call by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to immediately begin removing American troops — showed that the center of gravity among Democrats is rapidly moving toward proposals to accelerate the withdrawal of American troops from the war.

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"The last week has changed everything," said Tom Matzzie, Washington director of MoveOn.org, a liberal group opposing the war. "The whole debate just jumped ahead six months."

But while the week's events demonstrated rising Democratic hostility to the war, they also underscored the party's continuing divisions over what alternative to offer — and whether to present a specific alternative at all.

Though some insiders believe a majority of House Democrats might ultimately endorse Murtha's proposal to begin an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, only 13 so far have co-sponsored the resolution embodying it. When House Republicans forced a vote Friday on a resolution urging immediate withdrawal, only three Democrats voted yes after the bitter floor debate.

According to one Democratic source, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has dropped plans to seek a vote in early December on adopting a Democratic Conference position in support of Murtha's plan. Murtha has said his proposal could lead to a complete withdrawal of American troops in about six months and the establishment of a "quick-reaction force in the region."

Fearful that the proposal would generate too much opposition among moderate Democrats, Pelosi now plans for the conference only to discuss and debate it, the source said.

The plan Senate Democrats offered last week during that chamber's debate over the war did not seek to change policy nearly as sharply as Murtha does. Their proposal, rejected on a near party-line vote, asked Bush to set estimated timetables for withdrawing American troops as benchmarks of progress in Iraq are reached.

A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that based on the conversations that produced Senate Democrats' proposal, Reid believed hardly any Senate Democrats would sign on to Murtha's approach today.

Yet supporters and opponents of the war agree that the cry of opposition from Murtha — a leading military hawk during his three decades in Congress — is likely to mark a milestone in the war debate.

"Clearly it was a bombshell and it does shift the debate quite dramatically," said Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution who was a National Security Council aide under President Clinton.

Many Democratic political strategists and foreign policy analysts have long believed the party can benefit more from criticizing Bush's handling of the war than from specifying an alternative.

Although Democrats may be split on Murtha's specific proposal, his call for a clear break from Bush's policy is likely to strengthen those who want the party to offer concrete alternatives, many observers believe.

Many Republicans also see last week as a turning point. Bush allies believe that Murtha's declaration — following Senate Democrats' call for estimated timetables — will identify Democrats with a policy of "cut and run."

"I don't think the country has any doubt there are two positions: One is to stay and fight and the other is to leave," said one Republican strategist familiar with White House thinking.

As public opinion has soured on the war, support for withdrawing troops has grown, according to recent surveys. Nineteen percent of respondents to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll released last week supported an immediate withdrawal, and 33% said that all American troops should be pulled out within a year — meaning that a majority wants all troops home by the end of 2006.

Among independents, 56% want all troops home within a year, among Democrats 67%, the poll found.

Yet a range of GOP strategists remain confident that their party will benefit as more Democrats push to end America's involvement in the war. "As long as the Bush administration was in the position of having to debate events in Iraq, it hurt us," said the GOP strategist familiar with White House thinking. "When we are in the position of having to debate the Democratic Party on this, it helps us. That's what happened in the 2004 election."

Clifford D. May, president of the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said: "Democrats can certainly reinforce their brand identification as the party that cannot be trusted in the midst of a national security crisis. That is a real danger for them."

Largely accepting that logic, almost all centrist Democrats and much of the party's foreign policy establishment believe that a specific timeline or deadline for removing American troops would undermine stability in Iraq and hurt the party politically. During last week's debate, Democratic foreign policy leaders like Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) repeatedly insisted that the party's proposal did not establish a timeline for removing American troops.

Even those Democrats urging more rapid withdrawal are split on a wide range of specific ideas.

Until Murtha unveiled his proposal Thursday, Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), a possible 2008 presidential contender, had adopted the most aggressive position among elected officials: Feingold has urged Bush to withdraw all American troops from Iraq by the end of 2006, although he has softened his demand somewhat by describing that as a "target date."

Several Democratic challengers seeking party nominations in 2006 Senate races have also called for complete withdrawal by the end of next year. They include Patty Wetterling in Minnesota, Matt Brown in Rhode Island and Kweisi Mfume in Maryland.

In the House, war opponents have rallied behind a resolution from Reps. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) and Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii). That plan — which has about 60 co-sponsors, almost all of them Democrats — would require Bush to formulate a plan by the end of this year for removing American troops from Iraq and to begin that withdrawal no later than Oct. 1, 2006.

Last month, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), the party's 2004 presidential nominee who is considering another run in 2008, offered a competing plan.

Kerry proposed a phased withdrawal "linked to specific, responsible benchmarks" of progress with Iraq. As a first step, he said, the U.S. should withdraw 20,000 troops if December's Iraqi election goes well; this approach, he said, could allow the U.S. "to withdraw the bulk of American combat forces by the end of next year."

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, has proposed the inverse approach. Levin says the U.S. should pressure the contending Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish forces in the Iraqi government to resolve their differences by threatening to accelerate the withdrawal of American troops if they don't.

Murtha's plan leapt so far over all of these proposals in pushing to end America's involvement in Iraq that it might be compared to the Bob Beamon long jump in the 1968 Olympics that dwarfed all previous records.

It's not clear how many other Democrats will reach so far in the weeks ahead. But in both parties there seems little doubt that Murtha has pointed the direction his party is heading.

Germans: Bush misused data to justify Iraq war

Informant's handlers say they repeatedly warned of unreliability.

By Bob Drogin and John Goetz
Special to The Morning Call

The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims before the Iraq war.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11089.htm

I'm of the same generation as McCain (I was born in 1935) and I got over it--so can McCain. When this dark period of our history gets distilled down, after Bush
and Chenney, McCain and Kerry will get major credit. Bush and Chenney were in the best position to do the most damage and they did. Kerry and McCain were
in the best position to prevent it and they didn't.

http://select.nytimes.com/2005/11/21/opini...krugman.html?hp

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 21, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
Time to Leave
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Not long ago wise heads offered some advice to those of us who had argued since 2003 that the Iraq war was sold on false pretenses: give it up. The 2004 election, they said, showed that we would never convince the American people. They suggested that we stop talking about how we got into Iraq and focus instead on what to do next.

It turns out that the wise heads were wrong. A solid majority of Americans now believe that we were misled into war. And it is only now, when the public has realized the truth about the past, that serious discussions about where we are and where we're going are able to get a hearing.

Representative John Murtha's speech calling for a quick departure from Iraq was full of passion, but it was also serious and specific in a way rarely seen on the other side of the debate. President Bush and his apologists speak in vague generalities about staying the course and finishing the job. But Mr. Murtha spoke of mounting casualties and lagging recruiting, the rising frequency of insurgent attacks, stagnant oil production and lack of clean water.

Mr. Murtha - a much-decorated veteran who cares deeply about America's fighting men and women - argued that our presence in Iraq is making things worse, not better. Meanwhile, the war is destroying the military he loves. And that's why he wants us out as soon as possible.

I'd add that the war is also destroying America's moral authority. When Mr. Bush speaks of human rights, the world thinks of Abu Ghraib. (In his speech, Mr. Murtha pointed out the obvious: torture at Abu Ghraib helped fuel the insurgency.) When administration officials talk of spreading freedom, the world thinks about the reality that much of Iraq is now ruled by theocrats and their militias.

Some administration officials accused Mr. Murtha of undermining the troops and giving comfort to the enemy. But that sort of thing no longer works, now that the administration has lost the public's trust.

Instead, defenders of our current policy have had to make a substantive argument: we can't leave Iraq now, because a civil war will break out after we're gone. One is tempted to say that they should have thought about that possibility back when they were cheerleading us into this war. But the real question is this: When, exactly, would be a good time to leave Iraq?

The fact is that we're not going to stay in Iraq until we achieve victory, whatever that means in this context. At most, we'll stay until the American military can take no more.

Mr. Bush never asked the nation for the sacrifices - higher taxes, a bigger military and, possibly, a revived draft - that might have made a long-term commitment to Iraq possible. Instead, the war has been fought on borrowed money and borrowed time. And time is running out. With some military units on their third tour of duty in Iraq, the superb volunteer army that Mr. Bush inherited is in increasing danger of facing a collapse in quality and morale similar to the collapse of the officer corps in the early 1970's.

So the question isn't whether things will be ugly after American forces leave Iraq. They probably will. The question, instead, is whether it makes sense to keep the war going for another year or two, which is all the time we realistically have.

Pessimists think that Iraq will fall into chaos whenever we leave. If so, we're better off leaving sooner rather than later. As a Marine officer quoted by James Fallows in the current Atlantic Monthly puts it, "We can lose in Iraq and destroy our Army, or we can just lose."

And there's a good case to be made that our departure will actually improve matters. As Mr. Murtha pointed out in his speech, the insurgency derives much of its support from the perception that it's resisting a foreign occupier. Once we're gone, the odds are that Iraqis, who don't have a tradition of religious extremism, will turn on fanatical foreigners like Zarqawi.

The only way to justify staying in Iraq is to make the case that stretching the U.S. army to its breaking point will buy time for something good to happen. I don't think you can make that case convincingly. So Mr. Murtha is right: it's time to leave.



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Iraq puts "cloud over everything" in Congress
By Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — After largely avoiding the subject since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lawmakers are confronting the issue of President Bush's handling of the war. The start hasn't been pretty.

Political stunts by both parties have created an air of acrimony that is infecting the parties' entire agendas, and the war debate itself is obscuring every other issue in the capital.

The bitterness reached a new high — or a low — on Friday, when House Republicans forced a late-night vote on a resolution for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, in an attempt to put Democrats on the spot.

The resolution failed, 403-3, but only after members nearly came to blows when a GOP newcomer suggested Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania — a Democrat, decorated Marine Corps veteran of the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and one of the House's most-respected military hawks — was a coward.

The GOP resolution grew out of a proposal made Thursday by Murtha that sought to force the president to withdraw the nearly 160,000 troops in Iraq "at the earliest practicable date."

"Iraq is now a cloud over everything," said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst specializing in Congress. "It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room."

"I feel like every morning I wake up, get a concrete block and have to walk around with it all day," said first-term Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who came to the Senate with an agenda to overhaul Social Security and the tax code. "We can't even address the issues."

After simmering on Congress's back burner for months, the Iraq debate has eclipsed every other issue, slowing progress on some matters while stopping progress on others.

The GOP-led House and Senate are struggling to pass major tax legislation, an extension of the USA Patriot Act and a sweeping budget-cutting bill. Bush's top 2005 domestic agenda — revamping Social Security — has sunk from sight, and more recently his bipartisan panel on tax reform barely made a ripple when it issued recommendations.

GOP leaders view items such as the Patriot Act and the budget as too vital to fail in the end, but every endeavor is now made more difficult by the fracturing over Iraq — and just as the 2006 congressional elections begin to loom. Republicans have lost their anchor of the past five years — Bush's popularity — while Democrats still struggle to find their voice on the war. Neither side can dally for long, said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster.




"Iraq is now the dominant issue that is affecting voters, and it's affecting Bush's ratings," Hart said. "The public has reached a firm, fixed position on Iraq, and it's not going to change: This is not going to come to a successful conclusion, so how do we figure out how to get out of Iraq?"

GOP showing signs of wear

Until recently, only Democrats seemed to struggle to find their voice on Iraq, as Republicans were virtually united in backing Bush's policies. But as climbing U.S. military deaths there coincided with troubling revelations about prewar intelligence and Bush's plunging approval ratings, Republican cohesion began to fray.

Political developments in Iraq, such as the adoption of a new constitution, cannot overcome the impression left by the daily reports of suicide bombers and the recent milestone of the 2,000th U.S. troops lost, pollsters and political analysts say.

Democrats attack, Republicans change course

Public opinion has, in turn, emboldened Democrats to sharpen their attacks, and it has freed some Republicans — especially Northeastern moderates — to chart a new political course that separates them from the White House but wreaks havoc on the GOP's legislative agenda.

"The central new development is the decomposition of the president's support in Congress," said Ross Baker, a Rutgers University congressional expert. "I think there is a very acute realization on the part of Republicans that they no longer can hitch their careers to his popularity. That, combined with the new aggressiveness by the Democrats, means you're seeing basically a Bush agenda that is largely being derailed."

Politicians tried to calm the waters roiled by Friday's House maneuvering. GOP leaders had seized upon the impassioned call Thursday by Murtha for the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq, hoping to put Democrats on the spot by rushing a resolution to the floor calling on the administration to bring the troops home immediately.

"Today's debate in the House of Representatives shows the need for bipartisanship on the war in Iraq , instead of more political posturing," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said in a statement Friday night hailing the bipartisan Senate vote earlier in the week that called on the administration to share more information on the war's progress and to make 2006 a year of significant transition away from U.S. military action.

Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said Saturday that the result of the debate was positive, an unambiguous, bipartisan show of resolve for the war effort. Only three Democrats, Jose Serrano of New York, Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and Robert Wexler of Florida voted for the withdrawal resolution. But Pence, too, noted the acrimony of the discourse. "We cannot do democracy without a heavy dose of civility," he said.

Acrimony's broad impact

That acrimony and the all-encompassing nature of the war debate are having a broad impact. Bush's recent globetrotting, in Latin America and Asia, has produced more stories on dissent over Iraq than on free trade, economic cooperation and China's move toward democracy.

When Bush's bipartisan panel on tax reform issued its recent recommendations to simplify the tax code, proposals to eliminate deductions for home-mortgage interest and state and local taxes might have been expected to create an uproar. Instead, the panel's report barely made a ripple.

The president's plan to trim promised Social Security benefits and add private investment accounts disappeared without a trace. After Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said any reform plan is dead until 2009, the comments were hardly noted.

Other high-profile legislative priorities have been slowed by a lack of attention from the leadership. Congressional aides released details last week from a compromise reached over the extension of the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism law passed just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But the deal was not acted on quickly, and in ensuing days, provisions of the compromise attracted enough negative attention that a planned vote on the measure was delayed until at least next month.

House Republicans took weeks to garner enough votes to pass a five-year, $50 billion budget-cutting measure full of high-priority policy changes Bush has requested for welfare, Medicaid, agriculture supports and other entitlement programs. The Iraq-induced plunge in Bush's popularity emboldened moderates to oppose the most conservative parts of the bill.

On Friday, after the measure passed by two votes, Republican leaders hoped to highlight the victory at a "get out of town" rally. But they swamped their message by hastily putting the Iraq pullout resolution to a vote. That move also precluded an expected vote on a five-year, $56 billion measure to extend some of Bush's most-prized, first-term tax cuts.

Rothenberg, the political analyst, said such confusion does not bode well for the political fortunes of the beleaguered GOP.

"The public doesn't like mess," he said. "When they realize things are messy, they get frustrated and they arrive at the general conclusion that you blame the people you figure are in charge."

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americ...ticle328244.ece

The Independent & The Independent on Sunday
20 November 2005 23:20 Home > News > World > Americas

White House used 'gossip' to build case for war
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 21 November 2005

The controversy in America over pre-war intelligence has intensified, with revelations that the Bush administration exaggerated the claims of a key source on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, despite repeated warnings before the invasion that his information was at best dubious, if not downright wrong.

The disclosure, in The Los Angeles Times, came after a week of vitriolic debate on Iraq, amid growing demands for a speedy withdrawal of US troops and tirades from Bush spokesmen who all but branded as a traitor anyone who suggested that intelligence was deliberately skewed to make the case for war.

Yesterday Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, joined the fray, saying that talk of manipulation of intelligence "does great disservice to the country".

In Beijing, President George Bush said that a speedy pullout was "a recipe for disaster" - but the proportion of Americans wanting precisely that (52 per cent according to a new poll) is now higher than wanted similar action in 1970, at the height of the Vietnam war.

In an extraordinary detailed account, the Times charted the history of the source, codenamed Curveball, an Iraqi chemical engineer who arrived in Germany in 1999 seeking political asylum, and told the German intelligence service, the BND, how Saddam Hussein had developed mobile laboratories to produce biological weapons.

But by summer 2002, his claims had been thrown into grave doubt. Five senior BND officials told the newspaper they warned the CIA that Curveball never claimed to have been involved in germ weapons production, and never saw anyone else do so. His information was mostly vague, secondhand and impossible to confirm, they told the Americans - "watercooler gossip" according to one source.

Nonetheless the CIA would hear none of the doubts. President Bush referred to Curveball's tale in his January 2003 State of the Union address, and the alleged mobile labs were a central claim in the now notorious presentation to the United Nations by Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, in February 2003, making the case for war.

The senior BND officer who supervised Curveball's case said he was aghast when he watched Mr Powell overstate Curveball's case. "We were shocked," he said. "We had always told them it was not proven ... It was not hard intelligence."

The Iraqi, it now is clear, told his story to bolster his quest for a German residence visa. According to BND officials, he was psychologically unstable.

The debacle became complete when American investigators, sent after the invasion to find evidence of the WMDs, instead discovered Curveball's personnel file in Baghdad. It showed he had been a low-level trainee engineer, not a project chief or site manager, as the CIA had insisted. Moreover he had been dismissed in 1995 - just when he claimed to have begun work on bio-warfare trucks.

Curveball was also apparently jailed for a sex crime and then drove a Baghdad taxi.

The latest disclosures come at an especially delicate moment, as the Senate Intelligence Committee is about to resume a long-stalled inquiry into the administration's use of pre-war intelligence. Committee members said last week that the Curveball case would be a key part of their review. House Democrats are calling for a similar inquiry.

Washington is also still reverberating from the outburst of John Murtha, the veteran Democratic Congressman and defence hawk with close ties to the Pentagon, who last week urged an immediate "redeployment" of the 160,000 US troops in Iraq. Administration attempts to label him a defeatist have abjectly backfired. "I've never seen such an outpouring" of support, the decorated Marine Corps veteran, now 73, declared on NBC's Meet the Press programme yesterday. "It's not me, it's the public that's thirsting for answers."

No longer could President Bush "hide behind empty rhetoric". Mr Murtha said that his vote for war in October 2002 "was obviously a mistake. We were misled, they exaggerated the intelligence". He forecast that whatever the Bush administration said, "We'll be out of there by election day 2006" - a reference to next November's mid-term elections, when many Republicans fear that the Iraq debacle could drag the party down to defeat.

Intelligence red herrings

* Curveball: The Iraqi chemical engineer in his late twenties who defected to Germany in 1995, with tales of mobile germ weapons laboratories that were dubious before the invasion, and later shown to be false. The CIA brushed aside all doubts.

* Ahmed Chalabi: The exiled Iraqi leader won his way into the favour of the Pentagon. Defectors he brought to US attention proved to be false, as was his claim that US invaders would be met with bouquets.

* Iraq's quest to buy uranium from Niger: This claim was based on forged documents originating in Italy, but President Bush repeated it in his 2003 State of the Union speech.

* The aluminium tubes affair: Saddam was said to be seeking parts for a centrifuge for use in making a nuclear weapon. Analysts' doubts were disregarded.

The controversy in America over pre-war intelligence has intensified, with revelations that the Bush administration exaggerated the claims of a key source on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, despite repeated warnings before the invasion that his information was at best dubious, if not downright wrong.

The disclosure, in The Los Angeles Times, came after a week of vitriolic debate on Iraq, amid growing demands for a speedy withdrawal of US troops and tirades from Bush spokesmen who all but branded as a traitor anyone who suggested that intelligence was deliberately skewed to make the case for war.

Yesterday Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, joined the fray, saying that talk of manipulation of intelligence "does great disservice to the country".

In Beijing, President George Bush said that a speedy pullout was "a recipe for disaster" - but the proportion of Americans wanting precisely that (52 per cent according to a new poll) is now higher than wanted similar action in 1970, at the height of the Vietnam war.

In an extraordinary detailed account, the Times charted the history of the source, codenamed Curveball, an Iraqi chemical engineer who arrived in Germany in 1999 seeking political asylum, and told the German intelligence service, the BND, how Saddam Hussein had developed mobile laboratories to produce biological weapons.

But by summer 2002, his claims had been thrown into grave doubt. Five senior BND officials told the newspaper they warned the CIA that Curveball never claimed to have been involved in germ weapons production, and never saw anyone else do so. His information was mostly vague, secondhand and impossible to confirm, they told the Americans - "watercooler gossip" according to one source.

Nonetheless the CIA would hear none of the doubts. President Bush referred to Curveball's tale in his January 2003 State of the Union address, and the alleged mobile labs were a central claim in the now notorious presentation to the United Nations by Colin Powell, then Secretary of State, in February 2003, making the case for war.

The senior BND officer who supervised Curveball's case said he was aghast when he watched Mr Powell overstate Curveball's case. "We were shocked," he said. "We had always told them it was not proven ... It was not hard intelligence."

The Iraqi, it now is clear, told his story to bolster his quest for a German residence visa. According to BND officials, he was psychologically unstable.

The debacle became complete when American investigators, sent after the invasion to find evidence of the WMDs, instead discovered Curveball's personnel file in Baghdad. It showed he had been a low-level trainee engineer, not a project chief or site manager, as the CIA had insisted. Moreover he had been dismissed in 1995 - just when he claimed to have begun work on bio-warfare trucks.
Curveball was also apparently jailed for a sex crime and then drove a Baghdad taxi.

The latest disclosures come at an especially delicate moment, as the Senate Intelligence Committee is about to resume a long-stalled inquiry into the administration's use of pre-war intelligence. Committee members said last week that the Curveball case would be a key part of their review. House Democrats are calling for a similar inquiry.

Washington is also still reverberating from the outburst of John Murtha, the veteran Democratic Congressman and defence hawk with close ties to the Pentagon, who last week urged an immediate "redeployment" of the 160,000 US troops in Iraq. Administration attempts to label him a defeatist have abjectly backfired. "I've never seen such an outpouring" of support, the decorated Marine Corps veteran, now 73, declared on NBC's Meet the Press programme yesterday. "It's not me, it's the public that's thirsting for answers."

No longer could President Bush "hide behind empty rhetoric". Mr Murtha said that his vote for war in October 2002 "was obviously a mistake. We were misled, they exaggerated the intelligence". He forecast that whatever the Bush administration said, "We'll be out of there by election day 2006" - a reference to next November's mid-term elections, when many Republicans fear that the Iraq debacle could drag the party down to defeat.

Intelligence red herrings

* Curveball: The Iraqi chemical engineer in his late twenties who defected to Germany in 1995, with tales of mobile germ weapons laboratories that were dubious before the invasion, and later shown to be false. The CIA brushed aside all doubts.

* Ahmed Chalabi: The exiled Iraqi leader won his way into the favour of the Pentagon. Defectors he brought to US attention proved to be false, as was his claim that US invaders would be met with bouquets.

* Iraq's quest to buy uranium from Niger: This claim was based on forged documents originating in Italy, but President Bush repeated it in his 2003 State of the Union speech.

* The aluminium tubes affair: Saddam was said to be seeking parts for a centrifuge for use in making a nuclear weapon. Analysts' doubts were disregarded.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8093


November 21, 2005
Murtha Is Right
The Democratic Party "leadership" is wrong
by Justin Raimondo
"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We can not continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region."

- Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.)

If anyone other than John Murtha had called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, it wouldn't have been that big a deal. Murtha not only supported the war, he has been one of the biggest supporters of the Pentagon in Congress, praised by none other than Paul Wolfowitz for his "wonderful" support for the astronomical sums sucked up by the War Party in their never-ending quest for our tax dollars. It was Murtha who led the congressional Democrats in supporting Gulf War I, and, in his 2004 book, characterized a withdrawal from Iraq as potentially "disastrous" for our credibility in the Middle East and the world. (So much for efforts by the pro-war wing of the blogosphere to label him a peacenik because of his relatively mild procedural criticism of the Bush policy.) Rep. Murtha, like the rest of the country, has been on a pretty steep learning curve when it comes to Iraq in recent months. Furthermore, Murtha, as Andrea Mitchell pointed out the other day on Chris Matthews' Hardball, enjoys the confidence of top military commanders and Pentagon insiders and would not be speaking out if he didn't have their advance knowledge and implicit support – backing he acknowledged in his appearance on Meet the Press Sunday morning.

That's what this controversy is all about: the reemergence of opposition to the war from within the top echelons of the uniformed military, as well as the intelligence community and the Democratic Party. It was the generals, you'll remember, who opposed this war and pointed out our unpreparedness from the very beginning, starting with but not limited to Gen. Eric Shinseki, who was fired for saying we would need 200,000 troops for the occupation. Now that their predictions have come true, in spades, and our armed forces are being chewed up on the battlefields of Iraq, the uniformed wing of the Peace Party is returning for a second engagement, and they're bringing out the big guns.

The War Party is returning fire, however, and they aren't taking any prisoners. The GOP response was to draft a one-sentence resolution – "It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately" – and force a vote on it. Murtha, who had his own resolution calling for a phased withdrawal over six months, quickly disavowed the GOP maneuver, and it failed with only three votes in favor. The debate caused quite a ruckus on the House floor, however, as Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) rose to speak of a call she supposedly received from a Marine veteran:

"He asked me to send Congress a message – stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message – that cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

This is said of a 73-year-old Marine veteran who served over 30 years, the latter part of his military career in Vietnam, where he received a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. Democrats were outraged, but, tellingly, the Republicans did not relent until the president himself sought to calm the waters and praised Murtha's military service and his "thoughtful" views on Iraq. It was too late, however: the cow was already out of the barn. Earlier, White House spokesman Scott McClellan had said Murtha was "endorsing the policy positions" of antiwar filmmaker Michael Moore and proposing a "surrender to terrorists." And the vice president had ripped into Murtha and other Democrats who questioned the prewar intelligence that lured us into the Iraqi quagmire:

"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone – but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history."

It isn't just the congressional Democrats who believe we were lied into war: the majority of Americans now realize the nature and scope of the deception. They know full well it is Cheney who is rewriting history – his own, as Murtha pointed out:

"I like guys who got five deferments and have never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what ought to be done."

Ouch!

The chickenhawk brigade is out in force, and they're clucking up a storm, but it seems to be having a boomerang effect – much like our own heavy-handed tactics in Iraq, where the pace and ferocity of attacks on U.S. forces has picked up considerably. The problem for Murtha, however, is as much with his own party as it is with the Republicans, as Reuters reported:

"But nervous Democrats did not rush to embrace Murtha's position either. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, asked if she agreed with Murtha's call for withdrawal, said only, 'As I said, that was Mr. Murtha's statement.' Other House Democrats followed suit."

As did Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and former party standard-bearer John Kerry, who both distanced themselves from Murtha's position. The Los Angeles Times informs us:

"Pelosi has dropped plans to seek a vote in early December on adopting a Democratic Conference position in support of Murtha's plan. … Fearful that the proposal would generate too much opposition among moderate Democrats, Pelosi now plans for the conference only to discuss and debate it, the source said."

"Fearful" – that about sums up the Pelosi Democrats, who stanched all debate until a rising tide of public outrage forced their hand. These, after all, are the same Democrats who voted for the war and supported an administration – the Clinton administration – that was responsible for an equally unjustified, albeit far less bloody, war of aggression in the Balkans. There, too, we invaded a country that had never been any threat to us, without UN authorization, moved by the same sort of arrogance that prompted then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to complain to Gen. Colin Powell:

"What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?"

And it's not as if any of these characters have any moral objections to our decade-long assault on the people of Iraq. Not many lifted so much as an eyebrow when Madame Albright, asked by Leslie Stahl if the death of half a million children – killed by sanctions – was "worth it," answered:


"I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it."

Now that Americans are dying, however, suddenly the price is too high. I guess it all depends on who's paying…

As appallingly immoral as the Clintonites were – and are – however, nothing beats the Bushies when it comes to sliming the antiwar opposition. Even after the president went out of his way to characterize Rep. Murtha's dissent as honorable, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pursued the disloyalty meme. After pointing out that Murtha's views are not shared by the majority of Democrats, Rumsfeld averred:

"We also have to understand that our words have effects. And put yourself in the shoes of a soldier who thinks that we're going to pull out precipitously or immediately, as some people have proposed. Obviously, they have to wonder whether what they're doing makes sense if that's the idea, if that's the debate."

Which means we can never breathe a word about withdrawing from Iraq, because, after all, our troops are so sensitive that such talk amounts to a form of "hate speech" directed at our guys and gals in uniform. It is, in effect, a kind of treason to even raise the subject of getting out, because that will undermine the mission, perhaps fatally. On these grounds, no criticism of any war, at any time, is permissible – which is precisely what our rulers would prefer. The only allowable "debate" is one over means, not ends: anything beyond that is out of bounds.

That, of course, is how we got into this war in the first place – and, if we keep playing by those rules, we'll never get out. The "debate" will pit Bush and Rumsfeld against the me-too tag-team of Pelosi and Kerry, forever bickering over how to "win" and whether the president needs to report on his "progress" – with the fundamental rightness of the mission never in dispute, not even for a moment.

This bipartisan unanimity over the inevitability of an interventionist foreign policy is what got us into Iraq, and its maintenance will keep us in there until doomsday. That's why Murtha's dissent has caused such a refreshing ruckus. The Establishment is shaken to its core because a non-marginal actor in what had been a cooperative bipartisan effort has suddenly defected. A long as he gets away with it he provides an example – and, in Murtha's case, even an inspiration – to others. The aura of inevitability – the idea that, of course we can't have it any other way – vanishes, and their game is up.

The War Party's grip on the policymaking apparatus was made possible by both parties, in pretty much equal measure over the years: that is what antiwar Democrats must recognize before they can take their party back from the Democratic Leadership Council and all the pro-war mandarins. Sure, the Republicans have been in the saddle recently, and it was George W. Bush who took us into this particular war: but what separates the "antiwar" Democrats from their ostensible opponents in the administration is hardly a commitment to a principled anti-interventionist stance. While the Democrats are eager to make political hay out of the disastrous occupation of Iraq, once they're back in power it will be their war – one they have pledged to prosecute more efficiently. A position in favor of rapid withdrawal, however, calls the whole paradigm of America the overweening superpower into question. Do we really have the right to decide the fate of Iraq – or of any other country, for that matter? That is the question Americans, in increasing numbers, are asking, and it is one that neither party has so far chosen to address, let alone answer.

Murtha made a trenchant point when he said that the American people are "way ahead" of their government on this issue – and one can only wonder how long this yawning gap can be maintained. The elites are committed to a foreign policy that assumes American hegemony and the ever-present possibility of a U.S. military strike somewhere in the world, at any given moment. To any half-normal, ordinary American, such a foreign policy is just asking for trouble. So far, the War Party has managed to keep a lid on the debate by controlling both parties and never letting anyone of consequence step out of line.

Murtha, however, has defied them and must either be humbled or appeased. There can be no middle ground. The monopoly enjoyed until now by the War Party – their iron grip on the discussion over foreign policy in this country – has been broken. The floodgates are opened, and the will of the people is about to come rushing through. Now it is up to the grassroots in both parties to give the Murthas – and the Walter B. Joneses – their full support.

This, the elites complain, is nothing less than a "return to isolationism" – "isolationism" being their scare-word of choice. What it means, however, is that Americans just want to mind their own business and turn to solving festering problems on the home front – problems that, in short, they have some real hope of solving. If this is "isolationism," then let the "leaders" of both parties make the most of it – and let us hope that we find our great white "isolationist" hope to lead us out of the interventionist, war-wracked wilderness. Who will step forward to fill the huge leadership gap and give voice to the popular will? We have never been more ready than we are at this moment.

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=8097

November 21, 2005
We Must Hold the Scoundrels Accountable

by Paul Craig Roberts
The BBC reports that two former British government employees have been charged with violating the Official Secrets Act.

The Official Secrets Act is useful for protecting the British government from accountability. Anyone who reveals wrongdoing by government officials can be charged under the act.

The two men are charged with leaking a harmless memo, "Iraq in the Medium Term," that expresses British Foreign Office doubts about U.S. tactics in Iraq. The real crime is not the leak but her Majesty's government's continuing support for a policy that the British government knows to be illegal and bulging with war crimes. It is Prime Minister Tony Blair and his ministers who should be facing charges.

As the publication by the London Times (May 1, 2005) of the super secret Downing Street Memo (July 23, 2002) made clear, prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the head of British intelligence returned from meetings in Washington to tell the British cabinet that the Bush administration first made the decision to invade Iraq and then manufactured the "intelligence" to justify the decision.

The British government knew in advance that the invasion was wrong. Members of the British cabinet were concerned that British participation in an act of naked aggression would expose British government officials to war crimes charges. Nevertheless, Blair insisted that the UK had to support Bush. Little doubt but Blair was concerned that otherwise his political retirement would not be secured with U.S. corporate directorships.

Consequently, the U.S. and UK governments invaded a country for reasons that were different from the fabricated reasons used to make the case to the public. Thus did the highest officials in the two governments commit a plethora of crimes.

Under the Nuremberg standard, it is a war crime to initiate military aggression.

It is a criminal act both in the U.S. and the UK to commit military forces to action under false pretenses.

Many aspects of the conduct of the war are criminal. Torture, murder of civilians, corruption in contracts. Prosecutors could build a list of charges against President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Prime Minister Blair.

In England it is not Blair who is on trial for participating in what he knew was a wrongful act that has resulted in thousands of deaths. It is not the crimes committed in secret that get punished. The people who are punished are the ones who leak memos that reveal wrongdoing has occurred.

Blair may escape punishment for his treachery to the British and Iraqi people. Bush, however, may not. One of the neocon architects of the illegal invasion, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has been indicted on a peripheral issue. Another of the neocon architects, Douglas Feith, is being investigated by the inspector general of the Department of Defense at the insistence of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee. Feith is suspected of overseeing the task of creating the false intelligence.

Bush's public support has plummeted. A majority of Americans believe Bush lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, and now they doubt his integrity. Trapped in their lies, Bush and Cheney are lashing out at critics, proving once again the truth of Samuel Johnson's 18th century observation that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine, has had enough of the senseless killing, maiming, and expense of the Iraq war, which he termed "a flawed policy wrapped in illusion."

Murtha, a strong supporter of the U.S. military, has realized along with Gen. George W. Casey that U.S. occupation, not terrorism, is the driving force behind the Iraq insurgency.

On Nov. 17, Murtha declared: "We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people, or the Persian Gulf region."

A new CNN/USA Today Gallup poll shows that the American public agrees with Murtha. Fifty-two percent of respondents believe all U.S. soldiers should be withdrawn immediately from Iraq or over the next 12 months. Only 38 percent believe the troops should remain in Iraq.

The neocon architects of the war believed that the "cakewalk" invasion of Iraq would flow seamlessly into the overthrow of the Syrian and Iranian governments, making the Middle East safe for whatever policy Israel wished to pursue. Instead, the invasion has poisoned Muslims against America and created chaos and instability that play into the hands of Osama bin Laden.

The Bush administration believed that the euphoria of a "cakewalk" conquest would prevent the nonexistence of weapons of mass destruction from becoming an issue. Success would mask the lies, and the issue of accountability would not arise.

Success, however, was never in the cards. Congress has caught on, and pressure is mounting to bring our troops home. The determination of the Bush administration to discredit all critics resulted in illegal acts and Libby's indictment. The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has announced the formation of a new grand jury to continue the investigation of illegal acts by Bush administration high officials.

As events unfold, we must keep in mind that matters do not end with bringing home the troops and punishing the administration officials who blew the cover of a covert U.S. agent. The worst transgression was the Bush administration's decision to deceive our nation in order to use a war in Iraq to pursue an undeclared agenda in the Middle East. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld committed treason. They still have not told us the real reason they were so determined to invade Iraq that they used falsified intelligence to justify a war of aggression. We must find out their real agenda and hold them fully accountable for their crimes.

If low-level British government employees are to be punished for leaking a memo that had no adverse consequences except for the reputation of Blair and