Vietnam Shades Warner's Iraq Stand

Now he's gone further, sketching out his latest challenge to Bush during a late-night meeting last week with two colleagues in an ornate office at the back of the U.S. Senate chamber.

It is, he said, an attempt to send the same message offered by Hagel and Biden but without what he calls an overly harsh tone. Although it begins by respecting "the Constitutional authorities given a President," its bottom line is just as direct:

"The Senate disagrees with the plan to augment our forces by 21,500, and urges the President instead to consider all options and alternatives," the Warner resolution reads. He unveiled his draft a day before Bush's State of the Union speech.

"His support for a redeployment resolution -- and his opposition to the surge policy -- is very important," said U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a longtime friend. "It's going to have a very profound impact on the debate."

Warner's resolution gives some of his Republican colleagues a politically safe position to take on a war that is increasingly unpopular with the American public. "When John Warner decides that these issues have seriousness . . . there are a number of people who come with him," said Warner's new Virginia colleague, Sen. James Webb (D).

But to conservatives, the effort is nothing but folly.

William Kristol, founder of the Weekly Standard, calls both resolutions "wrong, foolish and irresponsible."

Kristol is careful to say of Warner that "I think he's sincere." But he said the effect of the resolution passing will be to weaken Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who was confirmed Friday as the top U.S. commander in Iraq and will implement Bush's surge.

"John Warner can be a patriot and still do something foolish that hurts our foreign policy," Kristol said.

Support for Soldiers

Few criticisms aimed at Warner seem to have much effect on him these days.

But one has.

At an Armed Services hearing last week, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) prompted Petraeus to express concern about the passage of a Senate resolution.

"A resolution -- a Senate-passed resolution of disapproval for this new strategy in Iraq -- would give the enemy some encouragement, some feeling that, well, some clear expression that the American people are divided?" Lieberman asked.

"That's correct, sir," Petraeus replied.

When it was Warner's turn to speak, he was clearly upset. He called the exchange "personal" for him and said forcefully that support for the resolution should never be taken as a lack of support for soldiers in the field.

"We're not a division here of patriots who support the troops and those who are making statements and working on resolutions that could be translated as aiding and abetting the enemy," Warner told Petraeus and his colleagues. "I hope that this colloquy has not trapped you into some responses that you might later regret."

A few days later, in his office, Warner made it clear that he's unwilling to give in.

"Those who say we're not doing the right thing, tell me, what is the obligation of the Senate?" he asked. "Do nothing?"