Is a bipartisan war policy possible?
More lawmakers urge Congress to forcefully steer US actions in Iraq. But a united front is hard to achieve in a campaign season.
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the September 13, 2007 edition
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Washington - When President Bush addresses the nation Thursday night, he's expected to endorse some version of what's come to be known on Capitol Hill as the Petraeus Report.
That strategy, set out by Gen. David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker in two days of hearings this week, recommends a drawdown of combat troops to pre-"surge" levels by mid-July 2008, beginning this year.
But a growing number of lawmakers, on both sides of the aisle, are chafing both at the recommendation and at its source.
Generals, no matter how respected, shouldn't be setting US policy, they say: Congress should, and it should start doing so in a bipartisan way rather than continuing to stage "show" votes designed to embarrass the other side, as has been congressional custom since the war's onset.
"By not having a bipartisan approach, Congress has defaulted and let the whole tone of this debate be set by a military man's report," says Rep. Joe Sestak (D) of Pennsylvania, a former three-star admiral and defense adviser in the Clinton administration. "Regardless of one's position on the war, it's profoundly dangerous to have the military make decisions on war and peace, and to some extent, that's what we've done."
While response to the president's speech Thursday night is likely to be along partisan lines, the test of whether Congress can find a bipartisan voice on the war comes next week, when the Senate takes up the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2008.
Over two days of testimony, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressed frustration with the US strategy in Iraq and called for a more active congressional role. "At this stage of the conflict, with our military strained by Iraq deployments, our global advantages being diminished by the weight of our burden in Iraq, it is not enough for the administration to counsel patience until the next milestone or the next report," said Sen. Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana, in hearings on the status of the war held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. "We need to see a strategy for how our troops and other resources in Iraq might be employed to fundamentally change the equation.".
Congress needs to ask, and get answers, to tough questions, said Senator Lugar and others in some 10 hours of testimony Tuesday. These include how the US will leverage new relationships with Sunni forces in Iraq into a rough balance of power with the Shiites. How will we maintain any enthusiasm among Shiite leaders for our goals if they perceive we are strengthening Sunni rivals? Lugar asked.
Asked by Sen. Russ Feingold (D) of Wisconsin how the US commitments in Iraq affected the larger global fight against terrorism, General Petraeus said that he was "focused on his area of responsibility," the mission in Iraq.
In the run-up to next week's debate on the defense authorization bill, lawmakers in both parties are scrambling for a new center.
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