Not whether, but how, to withdraw

from The Economist

THERE was plenty on President George Bush's plate during his trip to Asia, from discussing religious freedom with China's leaders to drinking fermented mares' milk in Mongolia. But events back home kept distracting him. There's “an important debate underway back in Washington about the way forward in Iraq,” he told reporters in Beijing on November 20th. Indeed there is.

The latest storm broke after John Murtha, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, said it was “time to bring [the troops] home”. In a passionate speech delivered on November 17th, he argued that American forces have “become a catalyst for violence” and are impeding progress towards stability. Sunnis, Saddamists and foreign jihadists are “united against US forces”, he said. Iraq's fledgling security forces will only be “incentivised to take control” if they are “put on notice that the United States will immediately redeploy”. He later clarified that he expected a pull-out to take about six months.
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Mr Murtha's outburst started a discussion in which neither Republicans nor Democrats are sure of their ground. The administration's first instinct was to attack Mr Murtha. Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said it was “baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party.”

Someone must have realised the foolhardiness of getting personal about a man who won a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts in Vietnam. Especially since Mr Murtha, now in his 70s, took the trouble of visiting Iraq's Anbar province—where the insurgency is at its roughest—before making his speech. When Mr Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney later stood up to rebut the congressman, they started by acknowledging that... [read more]