When assessing responsibility for the catastrophe that is the war in Iraq, most of the blame has to rest solely with the administration. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al crafted a debacle for the ages.
But is there accountability for Congress? Bob Casey Jr. gave a speech yesterday in Pennsylvania, noting that Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum has given his unquestioning support for the war. And that’s the problem.
In Pennsylvania, Mr. Casey, the prospective challenger to Mr. Santorum, said he would press the incumbent on why he had not taken a lead in raising questions about the war.
“Most people want to know what is the situation with training the Iraqi forces?” Mr. Casey said. “Where are we? Where are we with getting armor to our troops?”
Knight Ridder’s Joseph Galloway wrote a terrific column on this point yesterday noting that “one institution charged with standing guard between the civilian suits and the American troops in uniform that they command and send into harm’s way utterly abdicated that vital responsibility.” He wasn’t talking about the White House.
When [lawmakers] should have roared with anger they instead whimpered and whined and rolled over like puppies to have their bellies scratched.
When evidence came that general officers lied to them about their complicity, and that of their civilian overseers, in the torture and degradation of the mixed bag of foreign fighters, terrorists and dumb kids in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, they did their best to let it slide.
When the Pentagon ordered American divisions to leave their best and safest armored vehicles behind, parked in rows on their American bases, and go to war in thin-skinned Humvees in the deadliest place in the world, Congress said nothing.
When soldiers and Marines — many of them Guardsmen and Reservists — were sent off to war in old and useless flak jackets instead of the best body armor money could buy, Congress wrung its hands and urged Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to do better.
When nearly 2,000 of those troops came home in military coffins to grieving families, and the secretary of defense used a machine to sign his name to letters of condolence to grieving families, the members of those august bodies the House and Senate issued press releases mourning the mounting losses.
When push came to shove, most Republican lawmakers decided it was more important to stand with a Republican president than ask questions about his war.