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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (5745)	10/24/2003 12:25:59 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Re-Post: REVIEW & OUTLOOK The Cut and Run Crowd Congressmen from both parties shirk their responsibilities on Iraq. Thursday, October 23, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT Who do our Congresspersons think they're fooling? As they ponder a pork-laden energy bill and a multi-trillion-dollar Medicare prescription drug benefit, some have chosen President Bush's Iraqi reconstruction request as the place to make a stand for fiscal rectitude. The issue is whether to exploit Iraq's future oil revenues by giving some of the aid not as a grant, as the White House insists, but as a loan. The Senate voted last week to make $10 billion of its $18.4 billion reconstruction package a loan. Though the House voted all the money as a grant, that schizoid chamber passed a non-binding motion Tuesday instructing conferees to adopt the Senate position. For most Democrats, of course, this is politics pure and simple. They see it as an opportunity to tweak Mr. Bush on Iraq policy, where they believe he's vulnerable. But we're having a much harder time fathoming the motivations of the eight Republicans who voted for the loan provision in the Senate, and the 84 who supported the resolution in the House. Many are probably assuming the President will get his way in the final bill, and that their votes are a cost-free way to be seen protecting the taxpayer. "It's very hard for me to go home and explain that we have to give $20 billion to a country sitting on $1 trillion worth of oil," says South Carolina's Lindsey Graham. But Congressmen are fooling themselves if they don't think their actions are also being noticed in, say, Tehran, and wherever Saddam and Osama are hiding. The rap on America in the Middle East is that for all its technical military superiority, the country has no patience and no stomach for body bags. Hit them hard enough or long enough, and they will leave before the job is done. Barely six months into the Iraq mission, the Congressional naysayers are giving hope to all those who want us to fail, including the Baathist and jihadi fighters who are attacking our troops. The list of shame starts with those who voted for the war but have now voted against giving the President any resources to finish the job. They include Democratic Presidential contenders John Edwards and John Kerry, who were among only 12 Senate nays on the total spending package. But not far behind are the Republicans who supported the chamber's loan provision. They are Sam Brownback, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Saxby Chambliss, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, John Ensign, Lisa Murkowski and Mr. Graham. Much credit, meanwhile, should go to Democratic Senators Joe Biden, Maria Cantwell, Daniel Inouye and Zell Miller, who bucked their party leadership to favor a grant. Iraq is already drowning in Saddam-era debt, and the U.S.-led occupying force will not be making any friends in Baghdad by incurring more on its behalf. Any loan would certainly encourage foreign critics who believe the war was about the oil. The White House is right to threaten a veto of the spending package if any reconstruction funds are appropriated as a loan. Ten billion dollars, $20 billion--even $100 billion--is cheap if it helps build a democratic Iraq and a more peaceful Middle East. If Senator Graham and his colleagues are halfway competent politicians, they ought to have no trouble explaining that back home.