When is a timetable on Iraq not a timetable? When the Bush administration suggests it:
The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, senior American officials said.
Details of the blueprint, which is to be presented to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki before the end of the year and would be carried out over the next year and beyond, are still being devised. But the officials said that for the first time Iraq was likely to be asked to agree to a schedule of specific milestones, like disarming sectarian militias, and to a broad set of other political, economic and military benchmarks intended to stabilize the country.
Although the plan would not threaten Mr. Maliki with a withdrawal of American troops, several officials said the Bush administration would consider changes in military strategy and other penalties if Iraq balked at adopting it or failed to meet critical benchmarks within it.
A senior Pentagon official involved in drafting the blueprint said Iraqi officials were being consulted as the plan evolved and would be invited to sign off on the milestones before the end of the year. But he added, “If the Iraqis fail to come back to us on this, we would have to conduct a reassessment� of the American strategy in Iraq.
That sounds a bit like what critics (in both parties and independent writers) have been suggesting. Read the boldfaced section again.
Except in speeches by Bush and those who immediately adopt whatever current phrases he uses to justify every facet of his policies, have called even raising the idea of some kind of formal withdrawal timetable “cut and run” — something that would send a signal to the terrorists that America was leaving and consequently have a negative impact on the war on terrorism and the security of U.S. troops.
Kevin Drum writes:
Take your pick: (a) They’re serious about this. (b) They’re trying to put together a plan — any plan — in order to prevent James Baker’s forthcoming recommendations from becoming the default “sensible” middle course accepted by everyone in the DC punditocracy. (c) It’s meaningless except as political theater. Bush just wants the country to think he’s busily working on something, and this is the something.
I actually don’t know which of the three it is. Maybe all of them to some degree. But while we’re on the subject, note that this is all coming in the same week that the former head of the British armed forces gave his considered opinion about how we’re doing in our various wars: “I don’t believe we have a clear strategy in either Afghanistan or Iraq. I sense we’ve lost the ability to think strategically.” He was talking about Britain, but obviously his remarks were aimed at the United States as well. After all, we’re the ones primarily setting the strategy.
Of course the whole style of this administration — the reason why historians are likely to lump it with the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson’s and Richard Nixon’s in terms of a credibility gap — is to issue a strong assertion, have it echoed and pounded away by its supporters who go after those who don’t agree with it, then change course…which causes its loyal supporters to suddenly change course.
It’s as if when the administration speaks and changes course there is a massive political lobotomy.
But a debate over a timetable has been going on for a long time. To administration, the word “timetable” is a word that has been as dirty as the word “nuance” (which in practice the administration also now embraces on some policies)or the name “Barbra Streisand.”
TAKING A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE:
Voice of America June 24, 2005:
President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari say there will be no timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. The leaders discussed political and military strategy at a time when U.S. public opinion polls show falling support for the war.
President Bush is rejecting calls by congressional Democrats and some Republicans for a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, saying that could bolster the insurgency.“Why would you say to the enemy, ‘Here’s a timetable. Just go ahead and wait us out?’ It doesn’t make any sense to have a timetable,” president Bush said. “You know, if you give a timetable, you are conceding too much to the enemy. And this is an enemy that will be defeated.”
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush struck back Friday against growing calls to schedule a U.S. pullout from Iraq, vowing there would be no timetable to withdraw troops.
To do so would be “conceding too much to the enemy,” Bush said at a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari at the White House.
“This is an enemy that will be defeated.”
(CBS/AP) President Bush is again rejecting suggestions that he set a timetable for leaving Iraq or that he needs to send in more U.S. troops to battle the insurgency. Setting a timetable would be “a serious mistake” that could demoralize Iraqis and American troops and embolden the enemy, he said Tuesday in a primetime speech from a North Carolina Army base.
The Washington Times, Nov. 17, 2005:
President Bush said yesterday that it was “a positive step” for the Senate to defeat a Democrat-led effort to establish a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
“The Senate, in a bipartisan fashion, rejected an amendment that would have taken our troops out of Iraq before the mission was complete,” Mr. Bush said during a press conference in Kyoto with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. “To me, that was a positive step by the United States Senate.”
…. Senate Democrats yesterday continued demanding “benchmarks” for withdrawal from Iraq, with Sen. Barbara Boxer going so far as to promise that those benchmarks would not be used against the president.
“We’re asking the administration to say to us how long will it take to train the number of Iraqi troops that we need. Tell us how long that will be,” the California Democrat told Fox News Channel yesterday. “And, of course, we understand if something slips, we’re not going to hold you to it.”
Mrs. Boxer also seemed to suggest that Iraqis were not doing enough to defend themselves against terrorist attacks, and hinted that the fledgling democracy might do more if faced with the prospect of an imminent U.S. pullout.
“We need to send a message to the Iraqi people,” she said. “If they don’t want freedom, if they don’t want liberty, if they don’t want to step up to the plate and defend their country — as much as we’re willing to sacrifice for them for those things — it’s a real problem. And they need to know that.”
The administration and those echoing its arguments have been emphatic in suggesting any talk of timetables or suggestion that one might be linked to withdrawals would be bad for the war on terror and the troops.
Perhaps there will be a correction later today on the passage we boldfaced from the New York Times article, which leaves open the possibility that the U.S. could indeed set a timetable which — most assuredly — won’t be called “cut and run” by those who earlier suggested Democrats and Republicans who talked of timetables lacked the cojones to see administration policy through to its oft-stated, non-negotiable goal of victory.
MORE RESOURCES:
Google news search results “timetable Iraq”
Google web search results “timetable Iraq”
Outside The Beltway
The Heretik
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.