Pre-Emptive Strike

This is a good move by House Democrats who are trying to set the debate on Iraq rather than being pulled by events.

The House will hold hearings next week on two key reports assessing political and military conditions in Iraq, jump-starting the debate over President Bush's strategy even before long-awaited testimony by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, due the following week.

A completed 70-page report by the Government Accountability Office, to be delivered to Congress next Tuesday, paints a bleak picture of prospects for Iraqi political reconciliation, according to administration officials who have seen it. The second report, by an independent commission of military experts, is being drafted. But a scorecard on the Iraqi security forces released yesterday by an adviser to the group concluded that the Iraqis are years away from taking over significant responsibility from U.S. combat forces.

The two reports -- and hearings on them in the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees -- will set a largely negative backdrop for Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Crocker, who are expected to testify together in a joint hearing before the two House committees and in a separate session in the Senate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has objected to a Pentagon proposal that they appear on Sept. 11, a Pelosi spokesman said, and the exact date remains under negotiation.

Gen. Petraeus apparently put his thumbprint on the National Intelligence Estimate to make it look less bleak. But that report still damaged the Administration's credibility on the subject, as did this lobbying effort by a former Prime Minister to overthrow the current government. And I'm assuming the GAO report and the independent military expert's report won't be sunny either. The script that the White House wrote, that military progress was soaring, is not resonating with the American people.

Recently returned from Iraq, U.S. Rep. Brian Baird got an earful Monday night from angry war foes who jammed a town hall meeting.

The Washington Democrat, who voted against the Iraq war resolution in 2002, now opposes a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from that country.

Anti-war constituents repeatedly questioned Baird's reasons for supporting the Bush administration's decision to continued the "surge" of 20,000 additional troops at least until next spring.

"There is only one way to end an illegal and immoral war, and that's to end it," said Zamme Joi, an anti-war activist from Vancouver. Joi was among several activists who noted that they helped elect Baird to office in 1998 and continued to re-elect him in a congressional district that twice voted for President Bush. They called his position to support the war now a betrayal.

It's clear that the media's favorite new Democrat, Brian Baird, isn't capturing the imagination of the broader public. More people are inclined to agree with Zalmay Khalilzad's view that this disaster in Iraq could inflame the entire Middle East and the entire world in war and chaos. Just today a million pilgrims are in the crossfire of a major conflict in Karbala after rival militias fought in gun battles around the city. This is not getting better, and the only place where that's open for debate is in Washington. So House Democrats are absolutely justified in highlighting independent assessments rather than those which have been politicized.