Iraq: No deadline? Then no dollars

For anybody looking for new insights, a new start, or renewed hope about the war in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus' long-awaited testimony before Congress and the American people was a big disappointment.

In two days of testimony, what did we learn? Not much. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker offered no real reduction in troops, no plan or timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, no change of mission and no hope of political progress.

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Now the real question is: How dumb are we? Are we dumb enough to fall for the slickest military con job since Lyndon Johnson brought Gen. William Westmoreland home from Vietnam to reassure Congress there was "light at the end of the tunnel"? I think not. The American people can see through this charade.

Take the issue of troop reduction. Starting with a token 4,000 to 5,000 Marines redeployed before the end of the year, Petraeus boasted we might (underscore "might") draw down to "pre-surge levels," or 130,000 troops, by mid-July 2008 – just in time to give Republican candidates a boost in the November 2008 elections.

Politics aside, that's no troop reduction at all. It simply gets us back to the same number of troops we had in Iraq a year ago, before the surge began. Beyond that, Petraeus said he had no idea when we might be able to start bringing our core 130,000 soldiers home, or how long troops might have to stay in Iraq. Earlier, he'd predicted that some American forces would have to remain in Iraq for nine or 10 years.

On political progress, Petraeus and Crocker were even more pessimistic. Both admitted there were few, if any, signs that Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds were willing to resolve their differences. Ambassador Crocker even suggested we might as well drop the 18 benchmarks Congress has given the Iraqi Parliament, because they're never going to achieve them, anyway.

But wait a minute. That's what the surge was all about, remember? The whole purpose of sending additional troops, as announced by President Bush last January, was to give the Iraqi government enough "breathing space" so it could achieve political stability. Clearly we've done our job – and they've failed to do theirs.

Despite the lack of political progress, the general and the ambassador still argue that the surge is working because the level of violence is down. Again, they're speaking half-truths at best. Yes, there were fewer civilian deaths reported this summer than a year ago (maybe because with so many Iraqi families having fled their homes, there are fewer targets). But civilian deaths this year have far surpassed the number killed in 2004, 2005 and early 2006. Meanwhile, according to ABC News, this has been the bloodiest year yet for American troops.

With no political progress, no real reduction in troops and more American casualties than ever, how could Petraeus and Crocker argue that the surge is working? They can't, unless they're merely repeating talking points prepared for them ahead of time by the Bush White House – which is, of course, exactly what they were doing. When President Bush accepted the Petraeus recommendations as "his own," the charade was complete.

If the path ahead in Iraq is murky, the path at home is clear. Bush's plan of bringing 30,000 troops home 10 months from now is not only too little, too late, but it comes with too high a price. At current rates, another 1,000 young Americans will die in Iraq during that time. For what? So George Bush can drag this war out until he leaves office and dump it in the lap of his successor.

The war in Iraq has already lasted longer than World War II and the American Civil War. Enough already! This time, Democrats must hang tough. Congress should not appropriate one more dollar for Iraq without a firm timetable for ending the occupation of Iraq and bringing all American troops home.

If President Bush vetoes that legislation, tough. Then he, not Congress, will be responsible for cutting off funding for the troops. No deadline, no dollars. It's unconscionable to allow one more American to die for Bush's endless, unnecessary, immoral and illegal war.

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