Sunday, July 15, 2007 | 2:28 a.m.
WASHINGTON - Presented with the Baker-Hamilton commission's Iraq Study Group report last winter, President Bush promptly put it on the shelf.
Contained in that slim volume was a series of pessimistic assessments about the deteriorating situation in Iraq and any chance for a positive end. The bipartisan report formalized what former Secretary of State Colin Powell had distilled into a sound-bite of caution before the invasion: "You break it, you buy it."
The military may have toppled Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, but the United States now owns a very broken place.
Today, as congressional Democrats try to pull troops out of Iraq, heeding public opinion that has turned overwhelmingly against the war, there is much debate among lawmakers about what the country will look like when the soldiers are gone.
Republicans, including Nevada Sen. John Ensign, told reporters last week that pulling out would create a disaster, a safe haven for terrorists who would plot against the United States as they once did from Afghanistan.
The Iraqi government, he said, "will end up in anarchy and they will want to attack us. They follow us here - that's dangerous."
To bolster their arguments, Republicans cite reports showing al-Qaida is still strong, and they point to Bush's Homeland Security secretary, who says his gut tells him another attack is possible this summer.
But perhaps their strongest argument is this: Republicans say the Democratic proposal to reduce military forces in Iraq leaves too much unknown.
"What would this reduction involve? What is a limited presence?" said a news release from the Senate Republican leadership office.
As Ensign said, "I haven't heard anybody come up with an answer that would work better than what we're doing."
The Baker-Hamilton report said the military cannot sustain a prolonged presence in Iraq, and shouldn't. The troop presence looks like an occupying force to many Iraqis, which leads to resentment and serves as an invitation to terrorist sympathizers.
As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters last week, nearly 70 percent of Iraqis said they feel less safe with the Americans around. "It is clear the Iraqi people don't want us there," he said.
But Reid was less clear when asked what the country will look like when the troops leave, and it is that absence of clarity about the future that is sparking the next debate among Democrats.
At the heart of this discussion is the moral follow-up to what became known as Powell's Pottery Barn theory of we broke it, we own it. The question now: Is the United States responsible for putting Iraq back together?
Reid bristled when asked last week if the United States has a moral obligation to make the Iraqi people safe.
"It's up to the Iraqi people to make themselves safe," Reid said. "We can't do it."
Those who agree with him say the military cannot sustain its presence in Iraq indefinitely. Troops need to rest. Even the president concedes war fatigue has set in.
At the moment, the Democratic split is expressed in troop levels.
Some Democratic thinkers want a near-total withdrawal of the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, with development of new international mechanisms to address problems if conditions disintegrate into chaos.
Translation: The United States may have broken Iraq, but doesn't own it. Rather, the fix is best made by engaging the world community.
Others advising Congress say that the United States has a responsibility and interest in leaving a safe and functioning country behind. These advisers generally argue that sizable numbers of troops should remain, up to 60,000 of them, poised to prevent wholesale ethnic cleansing or atrocities. The U.S. soldiers would prevent terrorist training camps from taking root and would continue training Iraqis.
As the war debate on Capitol Hill continues, Republicans say the military just needs more time to stabilize the country. Ensign compares public attitudes toward Iraq today to the waning support for the Pacific campaign in World War II as portrayed in the movie "Flags of Our Fathers."
"They needed something to inspire the American people again," Ensign said. "The American people need something in Iraq as well. They need something to feel good about this war."
Nevada Republican Rep. Dean Heller said, "People want an end to this war, but they want to get out more intelligently than we got into it. Giving al-Qaida a victory isn't intelligent."
Democrats say they've been down that road before, and time has run out.
Six months ago the Baker-Hamilton report was dismissed by Republicans and embraced by Democrats. Now the opposite is happening. Republicans, including Bush, have taken great interest in the report, but Democrats have moved beyond it. As Reid said, the report is a "toothless tiger."
Even if Democrats succeed in gathering enough Republican support to persuade the president to start withdrawing troops, the decision to pull out may be only the beginning.
"There is no guarantee for success in Iraq," the Baker-Hamilton report warned. "It is important to recognize that there are no risk-free alternatives available to the United States at this time."
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