Voice of Experience, Reason

Gen. Wesley Clark on Iraq:

But with just a few days to go, it's time to return to the real issue of the campaign: Iraq. It was a war of choice, a war that has defined the Bush Presidency, and captured the almost unanimous support of the Republican-led Congress. For three long years after US troops occupied Baghdad, and as the country spiraled deeper into chaos and violence, loyalty to the President and his party demanded many members of Congress to follow his motto: "Stay the course". There have hardly been any Congressional hearings on the course of the war, but those that have been held have been firmly controlled. National security seemed to require that the Congress forfeit its independent oversight role. Critics were often demonized, public accountability minimized and policy alternatives were rejected.

But by early September and through October, a combination of leaked intelligence and briefing documents and mounting American casualties has kept Iraq front and center in the minds of voters. Neither a record fall in gasoline prices at the pump nor a record rise in the DOW Industrials index seemed significant enough to distract the eye of the electorate. Even the spectacle of a Republican Congressman soliciting underage Congressional pages vanished quickly from the airwaves., to be replaced by reports of daily American casualties in Iraq, and a leaked preview of the dismal policy alternatives to be submitted by James Baker's bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

Polls show a distinct and steady decline in public support for the war effort, and, more ominously, increasingly the American public has begun to doubt that the invasion of Iraq is in any way connected to winning the war on terror. Sitting Congressmen began to distance themselves from the President, the White House signalled that its "Stay the Course" motto was being refined, and more and more Republicans began to call for Rumsfeld's resignation. The vast majority of Americans wanted to see America succeed in its mission in Iraq, and now that seems increasingly unlikely. Democrats offered a more realistic, accurate appraisal of the situation, but there are no panaceas at this point. To many, every alternative seemed simplistic, wrong-headed, or even more prone to failure.

Complete Post By The General