CHCH News-A Fork in the Road

There's no longer any denying that the situation in Iraq is untenable. The media have helped turn the Abu Ghraib prison situation into another My Lai - and with unconscionable aid by partisan opportunists in Congress. The beheading of Nicolas Berg, the news blackout notwithstanding, is mostly being blamed on the President and "his war in Iraq." The journalism crowd, who rushed to "explain" Clinton's Grand-Jury-Eve strafing raids, now control the situation with repetition and half-truth; they've split the nation neatly down the middle.

They've continually and cleverly confused issues of misconduct at Abu Ghraib with debate over our presence in Iraq. They've confused the execution of Berg with retribution - ignoring the probability that Berg was killed days or weeks before the prison story broke on sattelite news feeds. They've confused silly humiliations, and isolated incidents of outright physical mistreatment, with organized wholesale slaughter of potential political opponents - activities stopped by US forces.

And the Bully Pulpit is vacant. Ronald Reagan would have taken his case to the American people on prime-time TV. For that matter, so would have Carter. But President Bush is strangely silent, at a time he should be using all means, all his skills, to tell the public, reassure and confirm to the public, what are his goals and aims.

Admittedly, speechifying is not his greatest ability. But this is crunch time - why is he silent? Has the steady onslaught of attacks broken him, pushing him into depression or sending him on a dry-drunk? He has to muster what fortitude he has, and take decisive action. Now.

The President must circle the wagons and use what political capital he has left. It is time for a Last Stand. For there will be no later chance at a later time.

* * * * * * * *

The power to wage war, according to the Constitution, lays with the Congress; and there it is that Bush need make his move. He will need to lay down the choices, clear and plain, in front of the House and Senate - and in full view of America. He will need to do this in a coherent speech - and in front of a joint session; in front of cameras; in a public address during network Prime Time.

He must call into session an emergency session of Congress. He should open this session with a speech, to Congress, and the nation, recounting the history of Iraq and his aims and goals.

He should begin with our interest in Iraq before its invasion in Kuwait. He should recount the terms of the armistice; the history of the UN ceasefire; and the difficulties the Weapons Inspectors had in carrying out their duties.

He should recount the sporadic assaults the United States carried out during the Clinton Administration. He should declassify and list to the world what material and information the Clinton team passed down to his own Administration.

He should recount the public statements made by public officials in the past:

President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998: "One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."

Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998: "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

Secretary of State Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998: "Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."

Secretary of State Albright, Nov. 10, 1999: "Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."

National Security Adviser Samuel Berger, Feb, 18, 1998: "He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."

Letter to the President signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998: "[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998: "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."

These and other statements must be laid bare when assessing the course, and determining the future of, the Iraq effort.

He must discuss the coalition forces - who is part of it, who is not, and what we have learned about those European powers who declined. He must discuss the failure of the United Nations in enforcing its own Resolution 1441 and policing its Oil-For-Food program.

He must discuss his own efforts; his two authorizations from Congress to use force to implement the requirements of 1441, and to implement regime change. He must proclaim why he believes this was and is the only prudent course; the costs and potential pitfalls of trying a policy of containment of Saddam. And he must remind Congress that the United States is committed to this course - that it is too late to change course without disaster to Iraq and the Middle East.

And he must lay out a choice.

He needs to present two sets of mutually-exclusive bills. The first would be a Declaration of War against the supranational terrorist organization al-Qaeda and other splinter groups to be identified with the adivce and consent of Congress. This would authorize use of all needed force to pacify Iraq and wage armed combat against Islamic revolutionaries as they are located and identified.

This would authorize funding and deployment of money, materiel and manpower as needed. This would put the nation on a true war footing.

And he must include in this bill a tough set of wartime Sedition restrictions - to control, to eliminate, the constant effort by the Yellow Press to incite Americans and embolden Islamicists.

Bush must articulate the need for this dramatic action. He must point out the complete failure of the Guns-and-Butter approach; he must point out the need for presenting a united front to Radical Islam and the world. He must explain why it need be all-or-nothing.

Then he need present a separate set of bills - directing the President to pull out all troops in Iraq and turn management of the region into such international organizations as are willing to take on the responsibility. This should happen immediately after the scheduled Iraqi elections.

This set of bills should revoke earlier authorizations to use force in Iraq and explicitly recognize that Iraq is no longer a strategic concern of the United States.

This bill must stipulate targets and dates and means of withdrawl.

Bush should direct the Speaker and the President Pro Tem of the Senate to introduce both these bills as written to the floor of both houses.

The President must show leadership - and delegate responsibility. He must recognize the limits to his authority - and realize that a grey, nebulous blurring of the authority and responsibility to wage war can and is resulting in his becoming a fall guy. He is being held responsible for something the duty of another branch of government; something nudge-and-wink authorized by that other branch.

Bush needs to make it plain: Congress has this choice, and no other. He must draw the line in the sand: "Here is the option - make your choice; and be it on your heads."

And then he must place the Capitol Building under Martial Law.

* * * * * * * *

Bush must use pressure. Whatever political capital he has left need be burned here. He must force a decision - no vacilating, no bloviating, no speechifying. Kerryesque ducking of responsibility is a luxury no longer affordable. The Congress should be kept in session; and the building in lockdown - no evening recessess. Both he and they must stay and work!

Only this can make it happen. Deny sleep; if needed deny meals. Only this can prevent endless filibustering and insertion of unintelligible nonsense.

He will need the help of party leaders in Congress. Only with their help can he prevent a procedural end to the lockdown before mealymouthed stall-artists slow-walk their way out of responsibility.

He must stick to his guns.

* * * * * * * *

If it succeeds, he will have the Congressional mandate he needs to finish the job in Iraq. To stop the steady stream of aid and succuor to the insurgency. To commit to what is needed to establish order in Iraq and give them the opportunity for democracy.

If it succeeds, it will show the world that for the moment, America is capable of resolve. Of taking on a dirty task and seeing it through to completion. Of responding to threats within and without.

It will proclaim America's political resiliance to terrorism - and thus make it safer for another generation.

And if it fails?

The President had to have known that persuing a policy of force in Iraq was politically risky. It was the kind of risk his predecessor preferred to sweep under the rug; a risk of making hard and unpopular but correct choices. Bush must have known the potential for failure; for renering his Presidency irrelevant.

A directive to withdraw will render his War on Terror a failure - not militarily, but politically. Not for tactics but for persuasive powers.

But that is the job of a politician. His is the job to persuade others of his vision and priorities. To date he has failed in this role - not so much for any shortcoming of his own but for an ongoing onslaught by opponents whose power has grown greater than his.

A directive to withdrawal is not so much a reversal of political fortunes as recognition of this failure. It's a laying of responsibility where responsibility belongs.

Bush cannot do it alone. No President can; the Chief Executive is not an Emperor. Without the adivce and concent of the Congress the Iraqi effort cannot continue. Nor should it.

To lose support at a time when retreat is reckless, insane even, is failure. No matter the reason.

If the gamble fails, Bush should and must abide

He will have failed the first and most basic test of a leader.

JustPassinThru is a former political-science student and locomotive engineman in the Great Lakes region, where he drives trains, worships cars, curses government - and now will try to write about all three.

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