The 'new' Democrats and the war

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With President Bush meeting today with congressional leaders on the war-funding bill, the administration continues to be hammered by Democrats who are never at a loss for words when it comes to professing their admiration for our troops or browbeating the Iraqis to "do more" to defend their own country. But these talking points from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bear little resemblance to the actual behavior of House and Senate Democrats, who have undercut the ability of U.S. and Iraqi forces to carry out their missions.

It is no exaggeration to say that nearly everything the new Democratic leadership has done has had the effect of delaying the flow of war funds. From the start of the year, prominent lawmakers like Mrs. Pelosi, Mr. Reid, Rep. John Murtha and Sen. Carl Levin made no secret of the fact that they were going to send the president a bill that contained "poison pills" -- whether in the form of binding or nonbinding surrender dates, micromanaging troop rotations to ensure that U.S. forces in Iraq were severely undermanned or presenting the Iraqis with a laundry list of conditions for political and military "reform" to be completed yesterday. Lawmakers made it clear that if the Iraqi government didn't get all of this done pretty quickly, U.S. forces were leaving.

It should hardly have come as a surprise that Mr. Bush stood his ground, and promised to veto such irresponsible legislation. Judging from their public comments, antiwar Democrats, realizing that they are something like 70 votes short of what they would need to override a veto in the House, may be interested in negotiating a compromise with the White House. While this is welcome news, supporters of the war should not be taking victory laps. The behavior of Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi has been shameful, and there are plenty of opportunities for additional mischief in the days ahead.

Mr. Reid has poor-mouthed our soldiers, saying the war is lost, while Mrs. Pelosi refused to appoint conferees to consider the war-funding bill during Easter recess. Adding insult to injury, the House even delayed its futile effort to override Mr. Bush's veto five additional days so they could stage a ceremony yesterday -- the fourth anniversary of the president's declaration that active combat hostilities in Iraq had concluded. Over the past five weeks, senior military officers, including Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomacher, have emphasized time and again that the fiscal squeeze is damaging unit readiness and will delay much-needed reinforcement for troops on the ground.

For all the Democrats' talk about the need to train Iraqi security forces, this, too, is a canard. Military expert Bill Roggio, writing in the April 23 Weekly Standard, shows that the training of Iraqis has been cut back thanks to Congress' failure to pass a supplemental funding bill. So, Congress behaves as if it has little regard for the welfare of the troops -- American or Iraqi.