ROGER SIMON COLUMN
AUGUST 22, 2005
WASHINGTON - - Although Vice President Cheney says we must stay in Iraq to show the enemy we have not "lost our nerve," at least two possible candidates for president in 2008 say Iraq is not a matter of losing nerve but losing lives.
On the Republican side, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said Sunday: "We should start figuring out how we get out of there."
Speaking on ABC's "This Week", he said that "stay the course" is not a policy and "we're not winning."
Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran said "we are locked into a bogged-down problem not unsimilar, dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam. The longer we stay, the more problems we're going to have."
And on the Democratic side, U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, called Thursday for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq by Dec. 31, 2006.
Feingold, who, like Hagel, is exploring a run for the presidency in 2008, told me the day before: "I believe I am the first senator (to set a deadline.) It says: Here is the date by which we ought to finish the mission."
(In January of this year, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., proposed withdrawing 12,000 U.S. troops from Iraq "immediately" and the rest "as early as possible in 2006.")
While polls indicate widespread discontent in this country over President Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq, few lawmakers have offered any real alternative to Bush's policy of "staying the course."
Even this June, when Feingold introduced a resolution in Senate that called on President Bush to clarify the mission in Iraq and lay out "a plan and timeframe for accomplishing that mission," Feingold did not call for a deadline for withdrawing troops.
Back then, Feingold said he was not dictating "deadlines or dates certain…because drawing up timeframes is best and most appropriately left to the Administration, in consultation with military leaders."
Now, however, Feingold has changed his mind and believes a deadline is necessary.
"I offered a resolution and tried to engage colleagues and asked the president to give us a vision," he told me. "The president has simply refused to give us a mission or timeframe to bring the troops home."
Feingold also said that many within his own party are afraid of demanding a withdrawal of troops from Iraq for fear of being branded unpatriotic or anti-military.
"I call what I am doing breaking the taboo," Feingold said. "The senators have been intimidated and are not talking about a timeframe. We have to make it safe to go in the water and discuss this. A person shouldn't be accused of not supporting troops just because we want some clarity on our mission in Iraq."
While Feingold is aware some will accuse him of playing into the hands of the insurgents and strengthening terrorism, he says the Iraq war has made America less and not more safe.
"The president's policy in Iraq has played into the hands of the terrorists," he said. "Iraq is now the principle training ground for terrorists."
While Feingold is proposing a deadline for American troop withdrawal, he says it can be a flexible deadline.
"It's a target date," he said. "If we believe we need a little more time we may have to continue (in Iraq.)
Feingold outlined three possibilities:
"One, we achieve our goals in the timeframe and we are able to bring our troops home.
"Two, we make progress but not quite as fast as hoped and we might need flexibility.
"Or three, things might get much worse and we might decide that we simply can't achieve our goals. But at least a timeframe measures how we are doing."
Sunday, the Army's top general, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, told the Associated Pres that in a worst-case scenario the Army is planning to keep our current troop level in Iraq - - over 100,000 men and women - - until 2009.
Feingold said: "What we have now is sort of directionless policy with no real sense of how this ends. A deadline will help us a great deal to stabilize the situation in Iraq."