Dick Morris had an interesting article published on the web site, The Hill, on July 18th about the latest bill sent through the house regarding the War In Iraq. The vote on the bill was on July 12th and passed largely along party lines with a vote of 223 to 201. Supposedly, according to the Pelosi’s talking points, the bill called for a withdrawal from Iraq.
But Morris, who served as chief of staff for Bill Clinton’s administration, actually read the text of the Bill, which he quotes in his article which I’ll also include:
The purpose of the bill was to “require the secretary of defense to commence the reduction of the number of United States armed forces in Iraq to a limited presence by April 1, 2008”
It also said:
“president shall, at a minimum, address whether it is necessary for the armed forces to carry out the following missions:
“(A) Protecting United States diplomatic facilities and United States citizens, including members of the armed forces who are engaged in carrying out other missions.
“(B) Serving in roles consistent with customary diplomatic positions.
“(C) Engaging in actions to disrupt and eliminate al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations in Iraq.
“(D) Training and equipping members of the Iraqi Security Forces.”
Instead of unconditionally calling for a withdrawal from Iraq, the bill actually _requires_ the President to keep troops in Iraq if the President deems any of the above items necessary.
So the question becomes, what’s different between this bill and what’s going on now? Does anyone seriously believe the president would not view any of these items to be necessary? Are there _any_ military activities in Iraq that don’t fall into one of these 4 categories? So even if tis bill sailed through the House and Senate unchanged, it would not require the President to bring a single person home by April 1, 2008.
As far as I can see, the only real substantive thing the bill does is require the president to “address” whether these things are necessary. I think that’s fair. If the president is going to put the lives of troops at risk, he is morally obligated, IMHO, to state to the world why and defend his justification. I’m not sure this legislation is the right way to do force him to do that. But I am supportive of the idea of discussing why we need to keep troops in Iraq.
But for Pelosi and the Democratic candidates to claim that this bill calls for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq gives the country the impression that the Democrats are calling for an unconditional withdrawal of troops in a specific, near term time frame, which clearly it’s not. And the Democrats have been deliberately misleading about this bill and ought to be ashamed of themselves for playing these games. If they really want to get out of Iraq, they could have drafted a bill to say so, but they didn’t.
I can’t help but wonder if the deadline in the bill, April 1, 2008, was deliberately chosen for it’s significance. If the bill was somehow passed and somehow the president signed it, then on April 1 2008 when not a single troop had been brough home, the Democrats could say to the public. “April Fools Day!”