Editorial: President’s indecision is disturbing

Thursday, April 8, 2004 | 8:55 a.m.

Over the past week the attacks against U.S. and coalition forces have intensified and spread in Iraq. The Associated Press reports that 36 Americans, two other coalition soldiers and more than 400 Iraqis have been killed since Sunday. This doesn't bode well for the U.S. transfer of power to Iraqis that President Bush insists will take place on June 30. In light of the fierce resistance, by Iraqi insurgents and outside terrorists, doubts increasingly are being raised in the United States as to whether an interim Iraqi government will be ready to assume control.

In recent days the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar of Indiana, and the committee's ranking Democrat, Joe Biden of Delaware, have renewed their concerns that President Bush still doesn't have a plan -- or won't reveal what it is -- that spells out how the transfer of authority will occur. The U.S. military presence will remain, obviously, but still left unclear is exactly what shape Iraqi self-rule will take and just how involved the United Nations will be. Biden and Lugar are worried, therefore, that a workable self-governing plan won't be ready by June 30 -- less than 12 weeks away -- and have suggested that the deadline be extended if necessary.

It's a fantasy to believe that the Iraqi army and police will be able to maintain law and order by June 30 -- yet one more reason why, if power is transferred too soon, even more chaos could result. Lugar, appearing Monday on the PBS program "NewsHour," noted that the Iraqis "have virtually no army, the police forces are very small and some ... flee when there is conflict in the cities of Iraq." Lugar and Biden are highly respected senators who have supported the mission to bring about democracy in Iraq, but who also have become frustrated by the administration's refusal to confront the disturbing reality coming out of that country.

There is a growing unease in the United States about U.S. policy in Iraq, a situation compounded by belated admissions that the invasion was based on faulty and misleading intelligence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, Bush's indecisiveness about how power will be transferred is particularly damning since he prides himself on being a "war president." It's incumbent upon the president to engage the public on this issue. The costs of the war have been high already -- more than 600 U.S. soldiers have died -- and the American people deserve to know what the president has planned next for Iraq.