CAP Study Agrees: We're Losing The Plot On Iraq

Yesterday, I wrote in They've Already Won The Iran Debate that the insistent focus on an imminent attack on Iran has taken the focus entirely off the failed mission in Iraq, endangering the ability to extract us from that catastrophe. Today both Ilan Goldenberg at Democracy Arsenal and a major report from the Center of American Progress both agree with that analysis, that progressives are guilty of "strategic drift" in Iraq, which will severely impact the effort to salvage any solution and get our troops out of the middle of civil war.

The CAP study, from John Podesta, Brian Katulis and Lawrence Korb, is really brilliant in its simplicity. It argues that the most important security concern facing the United States is in Iraq, not Iran, no matter how much the Bush Administration would like it to be otherwise. And allowing the national conversation to drift away from Iraq has wide-reaching impacts for the future.

Strategic drift moves us further away from the goal of a unified and stable Iraq. President Bush claims that the current strategy is having some success, but toward what end? The president argued that the surge would give the political breathing space needed to achieve a unified, peaceful Iraq. But this success, which Bush claims comes from a reduction of casualties in certain areas of Iraq, has been accompanied by massive sectarian cleansing. The surge has not achieved progress; it has impeded progress toward the stated strategic objective of national reconciliation [...]

Strategic drift weakens our security. Strategic drift poses the greatest threat to American national security. An open-ended commitment of U.S. troops in Iraq is weakening America’s security in four key ways:

It undermines the fight against global terrorists.
It continues to weaken U.S. military readiness.
It risks getting U.S. troops caught in the crossfire of Iraq’s civil wars.
It spends billions more on a strategy whose tactics do not add up to a realistic endgame.

The problem here is that the Bush Administration is (a) crazy enough to strike Iran without real cause, and (b) desirous of changing the conversation to anything other than Iraq. Since (b) is also a goal of Republican presidential candidates and politicians trying to hold on to what little power they have left, they have an incentive to keep drifing from Iraq. Same with the "serious foreign policy community" and DC elites who were wrong about the war in the beginning and want to bury their mistakes. But CAP argues that progressives are doing the same thing:

Progressives are frustrated because the president and his allies in Congress have obstructed their oversight of the administration’s Iraq policy. But they now risk drifting themselves into offering only a vague and muddled vision. Progressives must provide a clear alternative to counter the Bush policy of strategic drift—one that takes back control of America’s security interests [...] Progressives should start with a firm statement that America will undertake a strategic phased redeployment of its troops in a defined period of time. America’s interests, not Iraqi’s divided political leaders, will determine America’s timetable for redeployment.

This new approach should put key U.S. interests at the forefront—preserving Iraq’s unity as a functioning state that is not threatening to or threatened by its neighbors and does not have terrorist safe havens.

They cite three key elements for a solution: stop training and arming Iraqi forces for their coming civil war, call for an emergency political solution to the conflict through a surge of diplomacy, and engage regional players to ensure stability and stop the spread of the conflict. This can happen today, there's no need to wait for a new President, obviously through the funding mechanism.

The reason that we have lost control of the Iraq debate is that we have allowed our focus to drift. This is what Ilan Goldenberg highlights in his assessment of the CAP study.

Dems, progressives and the media have taken the bate (sic) on Iran. The reality is that we have 168,000 troops in Iraq not Iran. I think war with Iran is relatively unlikely. But if it were to happen it would be a catastrophe preciscly because we have 168,000 troops in Iraq and that is where the Iranians would inflict their damage. In the last two months the only big stories out of Iraq are Blackwater, Turkish border and Iran. People seem to forget that there has been no progress on the political front and there is still no articulation of what the "bottom up" strategy is. There is no plan for taking the various groups that the United States is now training and bringing them together instead of having them eventually just go at each other in a bloodier civil war.

There is a blueprint for effectiveness, but we have to maintain a laser-like focus on Iraq as the defining security problem facing the country. Talk of body counts and casualties, and specifically Iran, muddles the debate. Bush is engaged in tactics that cannot possibly meet his goals. He and the Republicans are using Iran threats and fearmongering as a cover to re-create a 2002-like national mood. If we don't offer a clear alternative, there will be brutal consequences all over the globe. In the end, this all goes back to standing up to Bush and making him defend his failed war in Iraq, instead of letting him drift off to Iran without accountability. We need to speak with one voice.

Progressives have drifted away from clear calls for redeployment and toward academic proposals and vague positions about what to do.

Last month’s Senate vote on a resolution suggesting a “soft partition” model of Iraq is yet another sign of muddle and drift. The “soft partition” plan envisions a decentralized Iraq built on three autonomous regions. It has been rejected by a majority of Iraqi leaders, opposed by a strong majority of the Iraqi people, and strongly criticized by powers neighboring Iraq because it is both impractical and academic and cannot be implemented without the support of Iraq’s leaders.

Other progressives have slipped toward advocating proposals that focus on tactical measures such as training Iraq’s security forces or addressing the spillover effects of Iraq’s internal conflicts on the region. None of these proposals cut to the heart of the national security threats posed by strategic drift—that the open-ended commitment of U.S. troops to Iraq is making Americans less safe and not resolving Iraq’s internal conflicts.

Pledging to continue training Iraq’s security forces without questioning whether our actions amount to essentially arming up different sides in Iraq’s internal conflicts risks further inflaming an already unstable Middle East. Talking vaguely about a political solution or accommodation among Iraq’s leaders without fully committing to a new strategy that helps Iraq’s leaders resolve their power-sharing disputes imperils tactical gains made in 2007.

I urge you to read the entire CAP report. For a while now they have been articulating the most sensible, least-bad option to the Iraq mess. They have not given in to the fearmongering about what might happen if we leave, or the false premises about Iraq being the central front in the war on terror. They have hones this argument smartly, and what they are advocating is right: return the focus to Iraq so that we can break through this failed policy before it's too late.

Not One Dollar, Not One Dime

We're now up to 87 Congresscritters that will not vote for any funding for the Iraq occupation other than for a fully funded redeployment, including deep South members like Artur Davis (D-AL) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS). That's only 25% of the House, but out in the country, the numbers for de-funding are much higher.

Asked what Congress should do with President Bush's pending Iraq supplemental request, the poll found that 70 percent of respondents want Congress to either vote against the President's request or require that funds can only be used for my plan to protect troops and bring them home. And by a two to one margin, respondents favored requiring that funds be spent on redeployment instead of providing the administration funds without conditions.

The polling memo is at Rep. Barbara Lee's One Voice PAC site.

We know that no supplemental will be coming out of the House until next year, so this is an opportunity for the Out Of Iraq caucus to get from 87 to 218 and force the hand of the leadership. The purse strings are really the only way to truly end this war, and it's going to be a long road which will not end with the election of the next President, as we know. So electing more and better Democrats to the House, and growing this movement over the next weeks and months, is crucial.

Presidentials Need To Show Leadership On Iraq

All of our Presidential candidates in the Senate had a chance to question General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker yesterday, and all of them did a decent enough job, though Obama and Clinton used it more as an opportunity to speechify than ask tough questions. Now all of them are on the campaign trail, and they more than anyone else have the opposition megaphone for the Democratic Party. They are running to be the leaders of the free world, so they must lead now, and tell the nation not just what they'll do about Iraq in 18 months should they become President, but what they'll do right now to end the tragic occupation of Iraq.

Chris Dodd has stepped up the most among elected candidates.



He's challenging all other candidates to publicly reject any bill that doesn't enforceable deadlines for withdrawing our combat troops. John Edwards has already announced that there should be no funding without a timeline, which is actually a stronger statement because it speaks to the type of bill that should be put forward, not what the individuals should vote on.

Hillary Clinton today sent a letter to the President (Congress is the only home to inveterate letter-writers these days) asking the President to tell the truth in his speech to the nation tomorrow. She rightly highlights the fact that the surge was planned to end next summer anyway, and so any drop to pre-surge levels is not a troop cut in any way, and she urges a more rapid redeployment. Whether she will do more than send a letter remains to be seen.

Barack Obama is a more interesting case. He's been planning a substantial speech on Iraq all week. He's giving it today in CLINTON, Iowa. And it's apparently very strong.

“Conventional thinking in Washington lined up for war. The pundits judged the political winds to be blowing in the direction of the President. Despite – or perhaps because of how much experience they had in Washington, too many politicians feared looking weak and failed to ask hard questions. Too many took the President at his word instead of reading the intelligence for themselves. Congress gave the President the authority to go to war. Our only opportunity to stop the war was lost.”

“There is something unreal about the debate that’s taking place in Washington… The bar for success is so low that it is almost buried in the sand. The American people have had enough of the shifting spin. We’ve had enough of extended deadlines for benchmarks that go unmet. We’ve had enough of mounting costs in Iraq and missed opportunities around the world. We’ve had enough of a war that should never have been authorized and should never have been waged.”

"I opposed this war from the beginning. I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed it in 2003. I opposed it in 2004. I opposed it in 2005. I opposed it in 2006. I introduced a plan in January to remove all of our combat brigades by next March. And I am here to say that we have to begin to end this war now.”

This is nice rhetoric that I really appreciate in regard to his future judgment. What it says about the current battle in the Senate over Iraq is unclear.

Chris Dodd has the right idea, but the candidates should unite on this issue. The Democratic Party needs to stand up against the just another six months mentality that perpetuates this failed war. I do think that Democratic leaders consider this so-called "troop cut" an insult to their intelligence. I heard Russ Feingold on NPR yesterday say that the mood appeared to be turning among Democrats on Capitol Hill. They have an obligation to pressure the President as much as possible, to get as many concessions as possible in exchange for that funding, and to deny it if there is no meaningful drawdown plan. The Presidentials are the key to that.

Advice Of The Generals

Turns out there's a lot of advice to choose from:

NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.

Maybe that's because General Petraeus is admittedly myopic about completing his mission, and at best dismissive of the overall war on terror. Just today we've seen Al Qaeda take credit for two suicide bombs in Algeria that killed 57 people. Our problems around the world are simply too important to global security to keep us bottled up in Iraq.

UPDATE: By the way, you'll be shocked to know that the President will take Petraeus' advice and "withdraw" 30,000 troops by next summer, when the military had to draw down anyway because they were out of forces. It's like being at the end of a tapped keg and calling for an end to beer drinking. A complete shadow play. And so next July we'll be right where we started in January 2006, with 130,000 troops in Iraq and no end in sight.

Guess What?

You're not going to believe this, but President Bush and all his top advisors want to keep troops in Iraq longer. This is really a stunner because everyone was waiting with such apprehension to see what the President would do. Would he call for troops to stay until the end of time, or just the end of his term? It's been agony, all the wondering.

President Bush's senior advisers on Iraq have recommended he stand by his current war strategy, and he is unlikely to order more than a symbolic cut in troops before the end of the year, administration officials told The Associated Press Tuesday.

The recommendations from the military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker come despite independent government findings Tuesday that Baghdad has not met most of the political, military and economic markers set by Congress.

And guess what, military officials aren't buying the GAO report because they don't like what it says the information is, like, so last month.

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) said Pentagon officials had told Republican leaders that the GAO had relied on outdated information. Because the agency was told simply to assess whether the benchmarks had been met, the GAO was set up to deliver a negative report, Blunt said. He added that lawmakers were far more interested in the assessment coming next week from Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker [...]

The GAO concluded that all forms of violence remain high in Iraq -- causing senior military officials to complain that the report did not consider statistics for August, when, they said, trends in sectarian violence and the performance of the Iraqi security forces improved.

"They use the end of July as the data and evidentiary cutoff and therefore are not taking into account any gains in any of the benchmarks that may have become more clear throughout August," one official said.

Apparently there was just a rush of political and economic and security progress in August, right around the time that 500 Yazidis were killed in a previously stable area of the country, I'd gather.

Did I mention that the military officials gave no facts to support their argument that they're right and the GAO is wrong?

We see exactly what's going on here. The surge was initially defined as to give breathing space for a political reconciliation. That didn't happen, nor did the surge even curb violence, so the Administration is moving the goalposts and declaring that the surge created "bottom-up reconciliation" which is nothing more than militias and former insurgents arming themselves for the civil struggle to come.

The White House insists that Mr. Bush’s fresh embrace of Sunni leaders simply augments his consistent support of Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

But some of Mr. Bush’s critics regard the change as something far more significant, saying they believe it amounts to a grudging acknowledgment by the White House of something these critics themselves have long asserted — that Iraq will never become the kind of cohesive, unified state that could be a democratic beacon for the Middle East.

“They have come around to the inevitable,” said Peter W. Galbraith, a former American diplomat whose 2006 book, “The End of Iraq,” argued that Mr. Bush was trying to rebuild a nation that never really existed, because Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds had never adopted a common Iraqi identity. “He has finally recognized that fact, and is now trying to work with it,” Mr. Galbraith said Tuesday.

I would argue that he's just looking for anything to prolong the war and save face, so he latched on to the Sunni tribes who will still allow themselves to be seen with him. Indeed, he said, when cameras weren't rolling so it's more credible, that his goal is to force the next President to "stay longer" in Iraq. Keith Olbermann lambasted him for this remark, with good reason.

And there it is, sir. We’ve caught you.

Your goal is not to bring some troops home — maybe — if we let you have your way now;

Your goal is not to set the stage for eventual withdrawal;

You are, to use your own disrespectful, tone-deaf word, playing at getting the next Republican nominee to agree to jump into this bottomless pit with you, and take us with him, as we stay in Iraq for another year, and another, and another, and anon.

Be sure to read that whole thing.

So where do we go from here? If the Democrats weren't so consistently weak it would be simple; you shut down funding for this disaster before it's too late. All you have to do is not fund the war, and take the Feingold-Reid option of a date certain after which no money will be spent (it's big news that Kos finally signed on to this, BTW). But whether or not Democrats have the stones to do that is unclear. What's more likely is that something comes out of this...

Rank-and-file Republicans and Democrats, meanwhile, are redoubling efforts to find bipartisan cooperation that could pressure the administration to begin bringing troops home. Six House Republicans and five Democrats released a letter yesterday to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio), asking them "to put an end to the political in-fighting over the war in Iraq and allow the House to unite behind a bipartisan strategy to stabilize the country and bring our troops home."

Breaking with the GOP leadership, the Republicans -- Michael N. Castle (Del.), Charlie Dent (Pa.), Phil English (Pa.), Scott Garrett (N.J.), Jim Gerlach (Pa.) and Tom Petri (Wis.) -- said they saw no reason to wait for testimony by Petraeus and Crocker.

"While we are hopeful that their report will show progress, we should not wait any longer to come together in support of a responsible post-surge strategy to safely bring our troops home to their families," the letter said.

...closer to the Lamar Alexander/Ken Salazar "Remember the Iraq Study Group" resolution, which is easily circumvented by the White House and makes everybody feel good for about 10 seconds before they realize it's completely toothless.

Very depressing.

Rep. Lee On Iraq

Since we're at the outset of Magical September and Congress is back in session, I thought it would be a good time to hear some straight talk from one of California's finest progressive legislators about the occupation of Iraq:

If you believe the Beltway hype, members of Congress will return today to a fiery debate about whether or not the president's so-called "surge" has produced military progress in Iraq. Beltway pundits are breathlessly predicting Democrats will be thrown into disarray by claims that the increased troop levels in Iraq may have produced security results.

Don't believe the hype. First off, the data are suspect. The Pentagon refuses to share the methodology by which it arrived at the metrics used to claim success. Even if the progress is real, it is hardly encouraging when put in perspective. When discussing the alleged gains he has overseen, Gen. David H. Petraeus stated that they put us on a course to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq sometime nine or 10 years from now.

What the debate about military progress really does is serve as a distraction - a smokescreen - put forth by an administration that finds it rhetorically convenient to speak in terms of "victory" and "defeat."

Read the whole thing. And ask your representative if they're on the list of those who will not give one more dime to this tragic effort without a redeployment of troops.

McNerney on Iraq

Good for Jerry McNerney for calling B.S. on his OWN visit to Iraq and understanding that the dog-and-pony Congressional delegations only provide a brief glimpse into conditions on the ground. McNerney highlights the excellent NY Times op-ed by returning soldiers, and renews his commitment to bringing our troops home from Iraq on a timeline with a firm end date.

You can thank McNerney for his courage and insight at his blog. I've excerpted a large portion of the email he sent to supporters below.

A few weeks ago, I was honored to lead a bipartisan, all-freshman Congressional delegation to Iraq to gain a deeper understanding of the conflict. As I discovered, it's one thing to read about what's going on there. But it's quite another to witness it firsthand and experience it personally.

I came away from this profound experience tremendously moved by the commitment of our brave men and women in uniform as well as the perseverance of the Iraqi people. Although I was proud to lead this delegation and personally meet with our troops, the trip was brief and limited to the locations picked by the military ahead of time.

For a grounded perspective on the war from those who are on the front lines, I urge you to read this critical first-hand account in the New York Times by a group of infantrymen just returning from serving in the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq:

New York Times Op-Ed: "The War as We Saw It"

As the poignant and piercing words of these seven soldiers demonstrates, the unfortunate reality in Iraq is that -- while our troops have performed extremely well under very difficult conditions -- the Bush Administration's planning and execution of the war continues to be an abysmal failure.

Our women and men laying their lives on the line in Iraq have done everything we have asked of them. To honor their service, they deserve leaders who respect them enough to ask the tough questions, and -- when something isn't working -- not only acknowledge it, but fundamentally change course.

In September, Congress will be participating in perhaps the most critical discussion of this conflict since it began in 2003. My campaign web site has been receiving increasing amounts of email from concerned citizens curious about my stance on the war. So, as we approach this pivotal debate, I want to clearly and unequivocally express to you where I stand on the question of executing a responsible redeployment from Iraq:

I am firmly in favor of withdrawing troops on a timeline that includes both a definite start date and a definite end date ("date certain") and uses clearly-defined benchmarks. I am not in favor of an "open-ended" timeline for withdrawal, as some members of Congress have proposed recently.

As many foreign policy experts agree, setting a date certain for withdrawal is fundamental to forcing George W. Bush to bring our troops home from Iraq and ensuring the Iraqis step up and defend their own country. That's why -- even as I consider all proposals as a matter of due diligence -- I am standing strong on setting a definite redeployment end date (as an example, I recently voted for the "Responsible Redeployment from Iraq Act" to safely draw down our troops over the course of nine months).

As this national debate begins anew, I am counting on you to stand strong with me as well. The only way that we, together, can bring this unfortunate chapter in our history to a close is if we remain united and steadfast in our collective commitment.

The Iraq Progress Report

There are two big stories today that I've been monitoring. The second, I'll leave for a later post. But the first is the release of the first progress report from the Bush Administration about progress on political benchmarks set by Congress for the Iraqi government. The report is middling, even from the White House's perspective:

Iraq has achieved only limited military and political progress toward a democratic society, the Bush administration said Thursday in a report that became prelude to a House vote on ordering a U.S. troop withdrawal by spring.

''The security situation in Iraq remains complex and extremely challenging'' the report concluded. The economic picture is uneven, it said, and the government has not yet enacted vital political reconciliation legislation [...]

Describing a document produced by his administration at Congress' insistence, he said there was satisfactory progress by the Iraqi government toward meeting eight of 18 so-called benchmarks, unsatisfactory progress on eight more and mixed results on the others.

Not much of daylight there. But you'll be completely shocked to know that the truth is even more ghastly. The National Security Network did a review of the benchmarks that the Bush Administration said showed progress, and, um, they didn't. The NSN report is a thorough point-by-point deconstruction of the entire document. A sample:

Benchmark (viii)


Assessment: The Government of Iraq has made satisfactory progress toward establishing supporting political, media, economic, and services committees in support of the Baghdad Security Plan.

Response: Establishing committees has had little impact on Baghdad’s population which still lacks access to many basic services like water and electricity.

In late May and early June, Baghdad suffered severe power and water shortages of up to 23 hours per day. Baghdad’s water pumping stations require electricity and currently, more than 8 of the 12 supply lines are down. With average highs topping 110˚F in July and August the situation has the potential to get even worse. Meanwhile, Baghdadis are forced to find their own water supply. Neighborhood co-ops are purchasing and running their own fuel-driven generators. Those who can afford to try and dig wells in their backyard, an expensive operation which also seriously affects the water table. [NSN Staff Interviews. Institute for War & Peace Reporting, 6/8/07]

Baghdad is still averaging only 5.6 hours of electricity per day. This number represents only 20% of prewar production levels. The Bush Administration’s Coalition Provisional Authority initially targeted 6,000 megawatts per day by June of 2004 and made the creation of a stable Iraqi electrical and water infrastructure a top priority. Iraq is still 40% below those levels. The average amount of electricity generated nationally in May (The last full month of reporting) was only 3,722 megawatts, a 6% drop-off from prewar levels. This, despite an effort to distribute electricity more equitably on a national level. [Brookings Institution, 7/9/07]

Not enough potable water exists in Iraq. According to the International Red Cross, “both the quantity and quality of drinking water in Iraq remain insufficient despite limited improvement…water is often contaminated, owing to the poor repair of sewage and water-supply networks and the discharge of untreated sewage into rivers, which are the main source of drinking water.” [Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, 4/30/07]

That's really good stuff, and I advise you to read the whole thing. My favorite is where the Administration assessed that the Iraqis had made satisfactory progress on political rights for minority parties, and the one-line rejoinder is "The Sunnis - one of the largest and most important minority groups – are currently boycotting the government."

It's expected that the Bush Administration would fudge the numbers, but the fact that they could only fudge them to show mixed results shows you how desperate the situation is in Iraq. A country where bank robbers could steal $300 million dollars and it's not even that big a story; a country where people can be killed in the Green Zone, which may be one of the most heavily fortified places on Earth; when the only legitimate change in strategy accompanying the escalation, placing troops in fortified outposts closer to the population, is totally backfiring; you have an incomparable, intractable mess on your hands, and no spinning can change that.

Barack Obama came out of the gate with a damning rebuke:

Does this White House think that we don't know how to turn on our televisions? Don't tell us we're making progress in Iraq when the last three months have been some of the deadliest since this war began for our brave troops who have sacrificed so much. And don't tell us it's progress when the Iraqi leadership has done nothing – nothing – to take the political steps necessary to end their civil war. This war has only fueled the terrorist threat whose strength is now at pre-9/11 levels. It should never have been authorized, never have been waged, and it must end now.

That's very strong, and Obama can afford to be, because the American people have figured this out. We're all waiting for a report whose conclusions we already know, to borrow a phrase, and the public doesn't feel there's any need to wait longer than the four-plus years that we already have.

The question of course is, what is the Congress prepared to do about it? I think pretty much nothing. Republicans are clearly going to continue to obstruct because the White House has signaled that nothing different is happening. And while this report is welcome from a political standpoint, to use as a club to bash Republicans, it is meaningless from the standpoint of being enforceable, because the benchmarks are all waivable, as per the capitulation funding bill passed by Congress before Memorial Day. Todat, the President exercised a waiver option he should have never had:

“Economic development funds are critical to helping Iraq make this political progress. Today, I’m exercising the waiver authority granted me by Congress to release a substantial portion of those funds.”

Harry Reid has signaled that the "Pretend to Adopt the Pretend Withdrawal from the Iraq Study Bill" amendment has, in his words, less teeth than a toothless tiger. So Republicans are unlikely to vote for anything enforceable, and the Democratic leadership is unlikely to authorize a vote on anything unenforceable. The House will likely pass their version of Reed-Levin today (which calls for a withdrawal in 120 days), but the Senate will continue to gum up the works. What's the game plan?

Mimi Katz offered the best one I've seen:

So what should the Senate do next? It is time for Harry Reid to take off the gloves. When conservative Southern Dems and their allies filibustered civil rights legislation in the 1960s, they had real filibusters. A Senator got the floor and refused to give it up, talking forever, yielding to colleagues when they needed a bathroom break. Cots were set up, and the debate went on for days and nights. Sometimes Senators talked about why the bill was bad, but sometimes they read the telephone book or otherwise wasted time. No one who wanted a vote could get the floor to call for a vote. In those days a petition to cut off debate (cloture motion) required 66 votes. Eventually LBJ was able to twist arms after the Kennedy Assosination, and the logjam was broken for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The rules were changed to require only 60 votes for cloture. But to get anything done, now once the minority party (or sometimes even just one Senator) signals an intent to filibuster, a cloture vote is held, and that is it.

What Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to do now is to call GOP Minority leader Mitch McConnell's bluff and require the GOP to actually filibuster. Bring up Webb-Hagel again, or do it with Levin-Reed. But make them filibuster. Make it plain to the Senators that there will be no August recess until the Defense bill is done, and if the GOP doesn't want to face losing an upperdown vote, they can filibuster for the whole country to see. The TV stations will love the theater, and the GOP will look as stupid as they did when they staged Bill Frist's talk-a-thon on judges when the Dems wouldn't allow up or down votes.

That's the kind of creative thinking this moment demands if anything is to be done about ending our occupation of Iraq. A general strike in the population is another idea. Let's bring this economy to a standstill.

UPDATE: The House passed a redeployment bill 223-201, getting yes votes from just four Republicans (Ron Paul, who has voted for something like this in the past, didn't vote). That's what we're up against.

Welcome Aboard, Olympia Snowe

She signed on to Reed-Levin, which would mandate a redeployment within 120 days. So that's one more than we got for essentially the same bill in May, and it puts a lot of pressure on fellow Maine Republican Susan Collins, who's up for election mext year, to do the same. Collins did vote with Snowe and 5 other wayward Republicans on Sen. Webb's readiness bill, which was unfortunately filibustered. But 56 votes is a lot, and suggests that momentum is moving in the right direction. I don't know how much longer Republicans can continue to be the President's body armor.

This bit at the end of the story is hilarious:

Bush said Tuesday he would veto any legislation setting a deadline on troop withdrawals. He also said he would not rethink his military strategy until at least September, when the top military commander delivers a progress report on the troop buildup.

"That's what the American people expect. They expect for military people to come back and tell us how the military operations are going," Bush said. "And that's the way I'm going to play it as commander in chief."

He means that's what he tells himself the American people expect. The American people ACTUALLY expect us to get the hell out of there, like, today. Bush just wants a parade where Iraqis wave purple fingers and American flags and erect a statue to him (isn't that what Saddam demanded?).

People ask what we're doing in Iraq. And you can answer in a hundred ways and in a thousand shades of literalism to metaphor. But at some level we're in Iraq because President Bush wanted a parade. It's not hard to imagine how he must have imagined it. A withdrawal of most American troops from a staunchly allied pro-American Iraq. Waving flags. Heartfelt thanks and vindication for the president who had the guts and character to see it through.

And that's why we stay. Because somehow if he just keeps at it someday he might get his parade. Or rather if he just keeps us there forever he doesn't have to really deal wtih what a disaster he's created and fundamentally what a failure he is.

Let's Play Hardball

Dick Durbin's Senate Committee refuses to fund Fourthbranch's office until he complies with the rules of the executive branch.

The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act is going to the floor of the Senate with 25 cosponsors.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) is calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the latest evidence of him lying to Congress.

The House will vote on an Iraq bill calling for redeployment within 120 days of passage.

I think they got the message. We'll see a stronger Democratic Party for the rest of this Presidency.

Take My Idea, Please

If George Bush wants to save face by pretending that phased redeployment was his idea all along, go ahead. Take it. None of us Democrats will complain even a little bit.

American military planners have begun plotting a fallback strategy for Iraq that includes a gradual withdrawal of forces and a renewed emphasis on training Iraqi fighters in case the current troop buildup fails or is derailed by Congress.

Such a strategy, based in part on the U.S. experience in El Salvador in the 1980s, is still in the early planning stages and would be adjusted to fit the outcome of the current surge in troop levels, according to military officials and Pentagon consultants who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing future plans.

But a drawdown of forces would be in line with comments to Congress by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last month that if the "surge" fails, the backup plan would include moving troops "out of harm's way." Such a plan also would be close to recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, of which Gates was a member before his appointment as Defense Department chief.

I would hope it didn't include the US-backed death squads prevalent in El Salvador, but other than that it's essentially the Murtha strategy he articulated in late 2005. So if the Pentagon and the President want to triangulate on this one, by all means. I'm not going to fret over who owns what idea. If the troops get out of harm's way, I'm down.