In case you haven’t seen it, a CBS News report about Republican frustration with the White House’s failures in Iraq, which is making the rounds online today, is as interesting as it sounds.
President Bush is facing increasing dissent among leading conservative politicians and pundits in the face of mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq.
The war has become the long slog that some Republicans feared. Since Sunday, 32 Americans have been killed in fighting across Iraq. American body bags are on the front page of major U.S. newspapers.
The Washington Post and The New York Times brandished images of charred U.S. civilian remains last week. The networks are leading their nightly news broadcasts with stories of dead Americans.
“If we have two or three more weeks of this you are going to start to see Republican members of Congress who have never been critical of President Bush and the Iraq policy starting to get that way,” said Charles Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Republican Party ranks are beginning to break and the White House is worried. Longtime GOP critics on Iraq are growing progressively more vocal in their condemnation.
One of the angles noted in the CBS report is how broad the criticisms have been. It’s not just members of Congress, or activists, or media talking heads — it’s all of them.
Republicans on Capitol Hill:
The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, has strongly suggested that the Bush administration reconsider its June 30 deadline to transfer sovereignty from the interim government to Iraqis.
“How do you know, come June 30, that a civil war will not occur?” Lugar said on Voice of America radio. “After all, the coalition has not disarmed all of these militia that these religious groups have in various places. They still are armed and apparently ready to fight.”
[…]
Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska told CNN Tuesday that the Bush administration has “few good options” left regarding Iraq. The implication: the White House has dug a ditch that it possibly cannot get out of without getting its hands dirty.
Republicans in the press:
Usually loyal pundits are speaking out, too. Conservative columnist George Will wrote in The Washington Post on Wednesday, “U.S. forces in Iraq are insufficient.”
[…]
“I’m not buying this ‘Iraqis are on the American side’ right now,” Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly said on the Tuesday night broadcast of “The O’Reilly Factor.” The leading conservative commentator repeatedly called the current conflict a “second war in Iraq.”
O’Reilly added, “I think Rumsfeld has got a lot of explaining to do here. There’s a lot of mistakes that are now killing American soldiers.”
Fellow conservative pundit and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough of MSNBC was even more critical in his broadcast Tuesday.
Scarborough: “Do we need more troops in Iraq? Hell, yes, we do. … Should June 30 handover date to the Iraqis be extended? You can bet your life on it … because creating this false deadline in time for a presidential election is no way to win a war.”
Jeez, when Bush has lost Scarborough you know there’s trouble.