Over the past couple of months, most of the rhetoric from top Bush administration officials about the public debate over Iraq has been fairly encouraging. Sure, far-right activists have said dissent is treasonous. And sure, in February, when lawmakers were passing a non-binding resolution criticizing the escalation strategy, Tony Snow went so far as to suggest that the debate itself brought “comfort” to terrorists. And sure, most of the House Republican caucus likes to throw around phrases such as “emboldening the enemy.”
But in practical terms, senior administration officials have made clear how wrong this is. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in April that demands in Congress for a timeline to withdraw are good for Iraq because they exert pressure on Iraq’s leaders. “The debate in Congress … has been helpful in demonstrating to the Iraqis that American patience is limited,” Gates told reporters. “The strong feelings expressed in the Congress about the timetable probably has had a positive impact … in terms of communicating to the Iraqis that this is not an open-ended commitment.”
Similarly, Condoleezza Rice used congressional debate as part of a diplomatic strategy to urge Iraqi political leaders to accelerate their efforts to produce results. Rice made clear to Iraqi officials that Congress’ frustration reflected the nation’s dissatisfaction, which in turn reminded Iraqis of the urgency of the crisis.
And yet, some shamelessly demagogic talking points apparently die hard.
The Pentagon told Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton that her questions about how the U.S. plans to eventually withdraw from Iraq boosts enemy propaganda.
In a stinging rebuke to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman responded to questions Clinton raised in May in which she urged the Pentagon to start planning now for the withdrawal of American forces. […]
“Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia,” Edelman wrote.
Got that? Even discussing withdrawal helps the enemy.
Of course, Edelman wasn’t just popping off on, say, Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. He was responding to a U.S. senator, in writing, after receiving a request for information. The AP noted that the “strong wording of the response is unusual, particularly for a missive to a member of the Senate committee with oversight of the Defense Department and its budget.”
Indeed, Edelman, a former Cheney aide, was in this case a) wrong; b) rude; and c) breaking protocol.
Clinton and her staff were less than amused.
Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines called Edelman’s answer “at once outrageous and dangerous,” and said the senator would respond to his boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates. […]
“Redeploying out of Iraq with the same combination of arrogance and incompetence with which the Bush administration deployed our young men and women into Iraq is completely unacceptable, and our troops deserve far better,” said Reines, who said military leaders should offer a withdrawal plan rather than “a political plan to attack those who question them.”
Sometimes I wonder if hacks like Edelman ever get tired of being wrong. It must be quite a burden.