Editorial: War needs honest debate

Friday, June 16, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.

President Bush and Republican leaders are taking full advantage of the glimmer of hope in Iraq emanating from the June 7 bombing strike that killed terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

On Tuesday Bush spent six hours in Baghdad, meeting with Iraq Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his Cabinet and also with U.S. troops. It was a dramatic trip undertaken with no advance notice. It featured the president flying by daylight over dangerous Baghdad neighborhoods in an armed and heavily escorted helicopter, whose flight path was additionally protected by U.S. ground forces.

The visit undoubtedly gave a boost to the new Iraqi government, but it also created a made-for-cable-TV 24-hour news burst at just the right time. By Wednesday both houses of Congress were readying for Thursday debates on the war in Iraq. And Republican leaders were handed the momentum.

In both the Senate and House, Republicans almost dared Democrats to speak against the war. The terrorist whose leadership and killings had made the most news had been killed the week before and Bush had just returned triumphantly from Baghdad.

Despite three years of political backtracking after no weapons of mass destruction were found, and three years of mistaken military strategy by the Pentagon, the latest news could easily be spun as a turning point.

With both houses of Congress controlled by Republicans, and with the Republican leaders trying to salvage their party's image for the midterm elections, the "debates" on the war in Iraq were heavily skewed against critics.

In the House on Thursday, the debate was over a Republican-worded resolution equating the war in Iraq with the war on global terrorism. How could a critic of Iraq war policy vote against that without incurring later criticism that he was "soft on terror?"

In the Senate, the Republicans craftily introduced legislation they knew they had the votes to defeat, that of withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of this year. The intent was to get Democratic war critics on the record as supporting such a policy, when in fact most do not. Most Democrats did not play the game and the legislation was quickly defeated 93-6.

In case war critics did take the bait, however, the Pentagon helpfully distributed 74 pages of talking points for those favoring the war. The intent, no doubt, was to make defenders of the Bush administration's policy look strong and resolute on evening news broadcasts.

Congressional critics of the war are not the weak-willed liberal peaceniks that the Bush administration is portraying them to be, as demonstrated by Thursday's 99-1 vote in the Senate approving emergency funding for the war. But they have genuine concerns about the administration's strategy that has resulted in a war showing minimal progress and high casualties.

What is needed in Congress are genuine debates about the war, with no gamesmanship involved.