And Now, an Important Announcement About [Thump]

The war in Iraq has been a series of errors, so it's only fitting that the exit plan should have its share of miscues, too.

Yesterday, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M), previously a full-throated supporter of the war, gave a news conference in Albuquerque to urge an expedited withdrawal of U.S. troops. It could have been a major turning point in the war if the audio feed hadn't run into technical difficulties.

Instead, those listening from Washington puzzled over what, exactly, the old bull was trying to say. "The war didn't go the way it was planned; it was [audio gap]," he said. Therefore, he joined "a group of senators that have good ideas who [audio gap]." The senators are demanding that the "Iraqi government make significant progress on [audio gap]."

"I do believe it's fair to say that [long audio gap, series of thumps] to tell you that there are very few wars that [audio gap, more thumps, whispered expletive, thumps]," the senator said.

One of the reporters asked for specifics about withdrawing U.S. troops. The answer: 45 seconds of silence, except for the clearing of an unidentified throat and the occasional click.

"Did everyone else's sound go away?" somebody asked. It had.

The out-of-town location and the technical troubles gave a tree-falling-in-the-woods quality to Domenici's big announcement. It was four hours from the time he launched his bombshell until it landed on the news wires.

Still, enough of the senator's words survived the voyage to give the sense that something big had happened. He called for a new policy for Iraq that "should result in a significant reduction of combat missions for the U.S. troops" -- and he said he won't wait until September, as President Bush wants. "I think by then something like this is apt to have confronted the president in a very formidable way," Domenici said.

Other Republicans had broken with the White House before, beginning with Sen. Chuck Hagel's heresy and continuing through the departures of Sen. John Warner, a group of House moderates and, last week, Sens. Richard Lugar and George Voinovich. But Domenici's shift is potentially the most significant, because he plans to force the issue in the next couple of weeks, when the Senate takes up a Pentagon spending bill.

Domenici, who has served in the Senate for 35 of his 75 years, said he was moved by a conversation with the father of a New Mexico soldier who was killed in Iraq. "I'm asking you if you couldn't do a little extra, a little more, to see if you can't get the troops back," Domenici said the man told him. "Mine is dead, but I would surely hope that you would listen to me and try to get the rest of them back sooner."

"That's what I'm beginning to hear," Domenici said. "I heard nothing like that a couple of years ago. I think that's the result of this war dragging on almost indefinitely."

To fill in some of the audio gaps, Domenici's office provided reporters with his talking points for the news conference, with various parts in bold ("we need a new strategy in Iraq"), underlined ("unwilling to continue our current strategy"), or underlined and in bold ("move our troops out of combat operations"). The aggravated punctuation conveyed an unusual sense of passion from Domenici, a legislator known neither for showmanship nor for incendiary tactics.

The vehicle for Domenici's Iraq about-face is relatively mundane: a measure enacting the recommendations made last year by the Iraq Study Group. But the six-term senator made clear that the legislation itself is incidental. He aimed to "cause some motion and movement at the White House" and to "see if some negotiations don't ensue that bring us to a different point."

"Oftentimes, legislation like this is used for negotiating purposes," he admitted, "to get something done that isn't exactly what you start with." But, he argued, "what we're doing here could overtake the way we're handling things over there in due course."

Exactly what Domenici is doing, however, may have to wait until he returns to Washington -- or gets a better phone connection.

He predicted that the Iraq legislation, sponsored by 10 senators, "will grow [audio gap]." He said he was influenced in part by a recent Pentagon briefing. "It was as honest as could be and [audio gap]," Domenici said. As for other lawmakers, "they might join up with the group [audio gap] formidable on the bill that I'm talking to here [audio gap] big ways [audio gap] on the defense authorization bill [audio gap]." The senator explained that he wouldn't have a fixed end date for the U.S. presence in Iraq, "because it's establishing us as a [audio gap, thump]."

In between the breaks in sound were tantalizing snippets. "If I were the Iraqi government," Domenici advised, "I would begin to get very worried [audio gap, sigh]." Opining that the Iraqis "didn't get great leadership in their elections," he added: "I think you could say that about America, too [gap, whispers]."

"Let's wait and see when it's all finished what the [audio gap]," the senator proposed. Excellent idea.