The "New York Times" realizes that the Democrats are going to have to get positive about how they would handle Iraq.
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EDITORIAL
Waiting for Democrats on Iraq
with the future of America's postwar occupation of Iraq looking longer by the day, the political debate over the issue has taken on new urgency. As American soldiers continue to die and the cost to American taxpayers continues to mount, the Democratic presidential candidates have started to sense that Iraq could turn into a liability for President Bush's re-election campaign. Unfortunately, they have so far been mostly jockeying to produce the best sound bite about who was the first and loudest to denounce Mr. Bush's flawed policy. They need to do better.
They have received little help from their comrades on Capitol Hill. Last week Congressional Democrats challenged Mr. Bush's request for $20 billion for reconstruction in Iraq. One of their leading demands, converting some of the money into loans, picked up enough Republican support to prevail in the Senate. Unfortunately, it's a terrible idea. Turning aid into a loan dumps more debt on a country that is already sinking in it. It's also the worst kind of election-oriented pandering that only serves to hide the true costs from voters.
A more immediately useful idea was the House Democrats' proposal to require the administration to submit a detailed accounting of all American-financed reconstruction spending and to notify Congress of all noncompetitive bidding. These requirements should be restored to the legislation before final passage, so taxpayer dollars don't excessively enrich politically connected companies like Halliburton and Bechtel.
Virtually all the Democratic presidential contenders are now skewering one or another aspect of the administration's flawed postwar policies. But many of these same candidates voted for the war. (Representative Richard Gephardt even appeared beside Mr. Bush in the Rose Garden last fall to urge Democrats to vote for a war resolution.) Mainstream Democrats did the country no favor by failing to raise more questions earlier about the administration's unilateral approach to Iraq. Those who want to take over the making of foreign policy should spell out their own ideas for fixing what is wrong in Iraq and suggest how they would respond to similar crises.
Almost all the Democratic contenders talk about enlisting more help from America's allies and the United Nations. What's missing is an explanation of how they would achieve this desirable goal given the obvious reluctance of many countries to contribute troops as long as America retains exclusive political control. Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman are headed in the right direction when they suggest putting the U.N. in charge of Iraq's political reconstruction and transferring more authority to Iraqis. Sharing power might also bring more competitive bidding for contracts.
On another big issue, Senators Lieberman and Kerry are right to call attention to the strain Iraq places on the army and reserves. Senator Kerry usefully suggests expanding the active-duty force by 40,000, half of them specialists in the postconflict assignments now falling to the reserves. Other candidates need to address this issue. One of them in particular, Gen. Wesley Clark, has the expertise to speak knowledgeably about it.
The candidates also need to tell Americans where they stand on the larger issue of preventive war. The prewar intelligence failures in Iraq and the failure, so far, to find threatening unconventional weapons strike at the basic premises of Mr. Bush's alarmingly novel strategic doctrines. What alternative ideas do the Democratic contenders have for handling threats like North Korean, and possibly Iranian, nuclear weapons programs and for dealing with countries that give aid and sanctuary to international terrorist groups? And what would they do to keep Afghanistan, the scene of America's first post-9/11 war, from falling back into chaos with a revived Taliban?
It is in the nature of modern campaigns to offer sound bites rather than substance. But voters have a right to ask for more and to press the Democratic candidates to present real alternatives to Mr. Bush's policies in Iraq and beyond.
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