Congressional Pushback

The storm on Capitol Hill over President Bush's latest Iraq strategy is justified -- but it should be tempered.

THE POLITICAL tempest that has greeted President Bush's latest plan for Iraq is largely of the president's making. Mr. Bush could have forged a bipartisan consensus if he had embraced the military strategy laid out by the Iraq Study Group, which was in keeping with proposals by the Iraqi government, U.S. military commanders and leading members of Congress. Instead, he chose to embrace an option -- the dispatch of additional American soldiers to Baghdad and Anbar province -- that has the support of less than 20 percent of Americans and maybe even fewer Iraqis. It's not even clear that the Iraqi government is entirely on board.

We don't think Mr. Bush went out of his way to pick the battle he now has with the new Democratic-controlled Congress. No doubt he has been convinced that the deployment of more troops is the only way to turn the situation in Iraq around. The White House, however, seems to have undervalued the importance of having broad public support before sending more troops into combat, with the inevitable spike in casualties that will cause. The intense criticism that has come from both houses and both parties in Congress is understandable, and justified.

So are some of the questions raised in congressional hearings at the end of the week. Chief among them is why the president would commit thousands of American soldiers to a pacification mission in Baghdad when success is heavily dependent on the Iraqi government's performance in areas where it has failed repeatedly. Republicans and Democrats alike have asked what the administration's response will be if Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki once again fails to deliver on promises to deploy Iraqi troops, tackle Shiite militias and strike political compromises. They have asked how long the "surge" can go on without overtaxing the Army and the reserves.

For the most part, the answers offered in public by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have been vague or evasive. But these officials and others have repeatedly pointed out that it will be possible to judge quickly whether the Iraqi government is doing what is needed -- and that those judgments can be made before most of the five additional U.S. brigades are deployed. For example, the three additional Iraqi brigades promised for Baghdad, with an additional 8,000 troops, are supposed to arrive in the capital by the beginning of next month, before 10,500 of the additional American soldiers are dispatched and before the administration's supplemental budget request for funding is submitted to Congress.

In that timing lies the possibility for a constructive response by Congress. Democrats in both the House and Senate are planning votes on nonbinding resolutions that would reject Mr. Bush's new strategy. Some are discussing ways to block the new mission by cutting off funding or attaching crippling restrictions. Neither action would improve the precarious U.S. position in Iraq, and the latter, if pursued to the extent suggested by Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) or Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), would invite a catastrophe for which Congress would be blamed.

Congress can, however, hold the administration to its promise to test the Iraqi government early and often. If Mr. Maliki delivers on his commitments in the coming weeks, the administration's bet on pacifying Baghdad may begin to look more solid. If the Iraqi government does not perform, then Congress will be well grounded in insisting that Mr. Bush rethink his strategy and suspend new U.S. deployments.