WASHINGTON - President Bush is sending his top aide on national security affairs to Capitol Hill on Thursday to confront what has become a tough crowd on the Iraq war.
A majority of senators believe troops should start coming home within the next few months. A new House investigation concluded this week that the Iraqis have little control over an ailing security force. And House Republicans are calling to revive the independent Iraq Study Group to give the nation options.
While the White House thought they had until September to deal with political fallout on the unpopular war, officials may have forgotten another critical date: the upcoming 2008 elections.
"This is an important moment if we are still to have a bipartisan policy to deal with Iraq," Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said in an interview Wednesday.
If Congress and the White House wait until September to change course in Iraq, Lugar said "It'll be further advanced in the election cycle. It makes it more difficult for people to cooperate. ... If you ask if I have some anxiety about 2008, I do."
Lugar, the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, plans to meet Thursday privately with Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley. Hadley requested the meeting after Lugar delivered a lengthy floor speech contending the president's war strategy won't have time to work and that U.S. troops should start leaving.
This is the heart of the story. President Bush needs to continue this war in Iraq until after January 20, 2009--the day Bush leaves office and drops the entire Iraq mess on his successor. By doing so, George Bush can then make his own claim that he did everything he could in fighting the Great War on Terrorism in Iraq. Any U.S. pullout from Iraq in 2009 will be regarded as a U.S. loss, and can be blamed on Bush's successor. That is the Bush administration's current strategy on Iraq.
The problem with this strategy is that it is a CYA for President Bush's failure for going to war in Iraq which will be paid for at the expense of the Republican congressmen, who are pressured by this administration to continue supporting the war in the face of overwhelming American opposition to the war. The Bush administration is looking at this strategy as to how it can salvage Bush's legacy--they want to continue the war until after George Bush leaves office, and are looking at the 2008 elections from a presidential perspective. What the Bush White House is failing to see is that the 2008 elections are also about Congress, and specifically Republican congressmen. The longer the Republican congressmen continue to support the Bush administration's war in Iraq, the greater the problem that these congressmen will have in explaining their pro-war positions to American voters, as both the elections get closer, and the Iraq war continues to deteriorate in more ethnic violence, and more American deaths. The Bush administration is forcing GOP congressmen to risk their own political careers in order to salvage George Bush's failed presidential legacy. That is the fracture which is currently taking place between the Bush White House and the Republican congressmen. And that is the reason why National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley paid a visit to Senator Richard Lugar--to keep this fracture from breaking wide open, and continue having the Republican congressmen goose-stepping to the Bush administration's failed war strategy. It was a Bush PR-damage-control-spin with the Republican congressmen. Continuing with the rest of the Yahoo news story:
National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Hadley's message Thursday on Capitol Hill will be "where we see things currently in Iraq and that we need to see what the commanders on the ground and the ambassador have to say in September."
White House spokesman Tony Snow said he sees little space between Lugar and the president, who Snow said sees troop withdrawals "over the horizon."
"We think it's important to allow the Baghdad security plan to work," Snow told reporters. "But if you take a look at what Sen. Lugar's trying to figure out, it's what configuration is going to be conducive in the long run to success and also building greater bipartisan support."
Indeed, the senator says he still opposes Democratic proposals setting an end date on the war. Lugar also warns against withdrawing forces too quickly and putting troops in harms' way.
But Lugar's contention that the military begin now a "sizable" drawdown of U.S. forces aligns Lugar more with Democrats than Bush and poses a serious challenge to the administration's insistence that it manage the war on its own timetable. As a prominent voice in the GOP caucus, Lugar says he would consider legislative measures this summer if the White House is unresponsive to his position.
Other GOP senators have aligned themselves with a similar position, including Sen. George Voinovich. On Tuesday, the Ohio Republican sent Bush a letter calling for "responsible military disengagement" from Iraq.
Republican Sens. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and John Sununu of New Hampshire also say they want to see troops departing Iraq by early 2008. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Wednesday she is working with Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., on a new bipartisan policy for Iraq.
In another challenge to Bush's Iraq policy, House Republicans urged the White House on Wednesday to revive the Iraq Study Group. A blue-ribbon panel chaired by Republican James Baker and Democrat Lee Hamilton, the group concluded last December that U.S. troops could leave by March 2008 if certain steps were taken.
Last week, the House voted 355-69 to appropriate a $1 million budget for another study, though the bill is unlikely to become law for a few weeks. Reps. Chris Shays, R-Conn., and Frank Wolf, R-Va., said they hope the administration will move ahead on its own to reconvene the group.
"If you had a health care problem, you'd want to get a second opinion quickly," Wolf told reporters.
The Republican push comes as a new bipartisan investigation found that Iraqi ministries are incapable of "accounting for, supporting or fully controlling their forces in the field." The report also confirmed that the U.S. is shifting its focus from trying to transfer control to Iraqi troops — because they are not ready — to trying to secure neighborhoods.
The findings, detailed in a 205-page report, cast doubt on how soon U.S. troops could leave Iraq under Bush's plan to "stand down" coalition forces as Iraqi troops "stand up."
"Basically, the department can tell us how many people they've trained and how many weapons they're given, but they can't tell us enough about how well they can perform their missions or even plan them," said Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., the outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services oversight and investigations subcommittee.
The Bush administration is trying to run the clock out on President Bush's final days in office, while continuing the Iraq war. Congressional Republicans are worried that their own political careers are at risk if they continue following President Bush's game plan on Iraq. At the same time, they don't want to anger their hard-core conservative base, which is numbering around 36 percent, if these GOP congressmen decide to support the Democratic legislation on withdrawal timetables. But in continuing to follow the Bush administration's game plan in Iraq, these same congressional Republicans face a potential wrath of American voters who want the war to be resolved. And if this war continues, without a resolution, until election day, you could see a number of these Republican congressmen unemployed. It is this fear that is causing the House Republicans to urge the Bush White House to revive the Iraq Study Group recommendations. I would say that by the end of this year, Congress will approve some type of withdrawal legislation which will have enough Republican support to override President Bush's veto. I'm guessing that this legislation will be some type of compromise legislation, including both the Iraq Study Group recommendations and a Democratic withdrawal timetable. If there is any type of withdrawal legislation to be passed with a two-thirds majority, it is going to have to take place by the end of this year. Once 2008 rolls around, we will be in an election year period where Congressional legislation essentially shuts down, to be replaced by election year politics. I doubt that any type congressional legislation on Iraq can even pass in 2008. I will also guess that any type of congressional legislation that will pass with the two-thirds majority, will probably take place near the end of this year--say November or December. Congressional Republicans are paralyzed by this lousy set of choices they are currently facing. They are going to wait until after September, when the Bush administration is supposed to report on progress of the troop surge in Iraq. Irregardless of the Bush administration's "Happy Happy Joy Joy" troop surge report on Iraq, the Republican congressmen will have around a two-and-a-half month window to really decide if they want to continue their pro-war stance with the Bush administration, at the expense of the American publics' opposition to the war, or whether they want to support some type of bipartisan legislation with the Democratic leadership in resolving the Iraq war over the President's veto. After 2008, it is all about election year politics, and Iraq will be the central issue in the election.
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