History Forum / General / British History / February 2007

Essential Reading...For The Cognoscenti Only.

Poguenoscenti Should Ignore With Contempt & Extreme Malice.

DSH

OFF LIMITS TO ALL POGUES & POGUETTES -- DO NOT READ FURTHER -- IT WILL ONLY
CONFOUND & UPSET YOU.

I HAVE YOUR BEST INTERESTS AT HEART

DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas
--------------------------------------------

Senator Joe Lieberman, Yale College '64, Yale Law School '67, Only Standup
Democrat In The Senate, FAR Smarter Than Many Other Senators, Both Democrat
& Republican.

A Man Of Courage & Fortitude -- A Stalwart -- For The Present -- And The
Conscience Of The Senate & The American People.

Rejected By Many Pogues & Poguettes In His  Own Party, He Soldiered On To
Victory In His Senate Race In Connecticut In 2006.

THE WAR

The Choice on Iraq

"I appeal to my colleagues in Congress to step back and think carefully
about what to do next."

BY JOSEPH LIEBERMAN

Monday, February 26, 2007

The Wall Street Journal

Two months into the 110th Congress, Washington has never been more bitterly
divided over our mission in Iraq. The Senate and House of Representatives
are bracing for parliamentary trench warfare -- trapped in an escalating
dynamic of division and confrontation that will neither resolve the tough
challenges we face in Iraq nor strengthen our nation against its terrorist
enemies around the world.

What is remarkable about this state of affairs in Washington is just how
removed it is from what is actually happening in Iraq. There, the battle of
Baghdad is now under way. A new commander, Gen. David Petraeus, has taken
command, having been confirmed by the Senate, 81-0, just a few weeks ago.

And a new strategy is being put into action, with thousands of additional
American soldiers streaming into the Iraqi capital.

Congress thus faces a choice in the weeks and months ahead. Will we allow
our actions to be driven by the changing conditions on the ground in
Iraq--or by the unchanging political and ideological positions long ago
staked out in Washington? What ultimately matters more to us: the real fight
over there, or the political fight over here?

If we stopped the legislative maneuvering and looked to Baghdad, we would
see what the new security strategy actually entails and how dramatically it
differs from previous efforts. For the first time in the Iraqi capital, the
focus of the U.S. military is not just training indigenous forces or chasing
down insurgents, but ensuring basic security--meaning an end, at last, to
the large-scale sectarian slaughter and ethnic cleansing that has paralyzed
Iraq for the past year.

Tamping down this violence is more than a moral imperative. Al Qaeda's
stated strategy in Iraq has been to provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war,
precisely because they recognize that it is their best chance to radicalize
the country's politics, derail any hope of democracy in the Middle East, and
drive the U.S. to despair and retreat. It also takes advantage of what has
been the single greatest American weakness in Iraq: the absence of
sufficient troops to protect ordinary Iraqis from violence and terrorism.

The new strategy at last begins to tackle these problems. Where previously
there weren't enough soldiers to hold key neighborhoods after they had been
cleared of extremists and militias, now more U.S. and Iraqi forces are
either in place or on the way. Where previously American forces were based
on the outskirts of Baghdad, unable to help secure the city, now they are
living and working side-by-side with their Iraqi counterparts on small bases
being set up throughout the capital.

At least four of these new joint bases have already been established in the
Sunni neighborhoods in west Baghdad--the same neighborhoods where, just a
few weeks ago, jihadists and death squads held sway. In the Shiite
neighborhoods of east Baghdad, American troops are also moving in--and
Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army are moving out.

We of course will not know whether this new strategy in Iraq will succeed
for some time. Even under the most optimistic of scenarios, there will be
more attacks and casualties in the months ahead, especially as our fanatical
enemies react and attempt to thwart any perception of progress.

But the fact is that we are in a different place in Iraq today from even
just a month ago--with a new strategy, a new commander, and more troops on
the ground. We are now in a stronger position to ensure basic security--and
with that, we are in a stronger position to marginalize the extremists and
strengthen the moderates; a stronger position to foster the economic
activity that will drain the insurgency and militias of public support; and
a stronger position to press the Iraqi government to make the tough
decisions that everyone acknowledges are necessary for progress.

Unfortunately, for many congressional opponents of the war, none of this
seems to matter. As the battle of Baghdad just gets underway, they have
already made up their minds about America's cause in Iraq, declaring their
intention to put an end to the mission before we have had the time to see
whether our new plan will work.

There is of course a direct and straightforward way that Congress could end
the war, consistent with its authority under the Constitution: by cutting
off funds. Yet this option is not being proposed. Critics of the war instead
are planning to constrain and squeeze the current strategy and troops by a
thousand cuts and conditions.

Among the specific ideas under consideration are to tangle up the deployment
of requested reinforcements by imposing certain "readiness" standards, and
to redraft the congressional authorization for the war, apparently in such a
way that Congress will assume the role of commander in chief and dictate
when, where and against whom U.S. troops can fight.

I understand the frustration, anger and exhaustion so many Americans feel
about Iraq, the desire to throw up our hands and simply say, "Enough." And I
am painfully aware of the enormous toll of this war in human life, and of
the infuriating mistakes that have been made in the war's conduct.

But we must not make another terrible mistake now. Many of the worst errors
in Iraq arose precisely because the Bush administration best-cased what
would happen after Saddam was overthrown. Now many opponents of the war are
making the very same best-case mistake--assuming we can pull back in the
midst of a critical battle with impunity, even arguing that our retreat will
reduce the terrorism and sectarian violence in Iraq.

In fact, halting the current security operation at midpoint, as virtually
all of the congressional proposals seek to do, would have devastating
consequences. It would put thousands of American troops already deployed in
the heart of Baghdad in even greater danger--forced to choose between trying
to hold their position without the required reinforcements or, more likely,
abandoning them outright. A precipitous pullout would leave a gaping
security vacuum in its wake, which terrorists, insurgents, militias and Iran
would rush to fill--probably resulting in a spiral of ethnic cleansing and
slaughter on a scale as yet unseen in Iraq.

I appeal to my colleagues in Congress to step back and think carefully about
what to do next. Instead of undermining Gen. Petraeus before he has been in
Iraq for even a month, let us give him and his troops the time and support
they need to succeed.

Gen. Petraeus says he will be able to see whether progress is occurring by
the end of the summer, so let us declare a truce in the Washington political
war over Iraq until then. Let us come together around a constructive
legislative agenda for our security: authorizing an increase in the size of
the Army and Marines, funding the equipment and protection our troops need,
monitoring progress on the ground in Iraq with oversight hearings,
investigating contract procedures, and guaranteeing Iraq war veterans the
first-class treatment and care they deserve when they come home.

We are at a critical moment in Iraq--at the beginning of a key battle, in
the midst of a war that is irretrievably bound up in an even bigger, global
struggle against the totalitarian ideology of radical Islamism. However
tired, however frustrated, however angry we may feel, we must remember that
our forces in Iraq carry America's cause--the cause of freedom--which we
abandon at our peril.

Mr. Lieberman is an Independent senator from Connecticut.