Debate on Iraq

Forty years ago, as the United States plunged ever deeper into the Vietnam war, Sen. William Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat, led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in lengthy public hearings that created a great national debate on the developing conflict. Millions of Americans watched on television as witnesses in and out of the government argued questions of history, politics, morality, and military strategy. Mr. Fulbright made an impassioned speech titled “Old Myths and New Realities,” questioning the basic thesis that Vietnamese communism was a tentacle of a monolithic Sino-Soviet threat and had to be destroyed. He contended that the United States was getting into a civil war on the side of outmoded colonialism and against what amounted to a nationalistic movement that sought freedom and independence rather than world communism. Unfortunately, the war was already in progress, the myths persisted, and the United States wound up after a long, bloody, expensive struggle with a humiliating defeat.

That same Foreign Relations Committee now has begun public hearings on a war that seems to be coming but is still over the horizon. For two days last week, it heard testimony from former senior military officers and nongovernment experts on Iraq. They generally agreed that Saddam Hussein is a dangerous threat and that an American invasion would ultimately prevail. But they differed widely as to how to do it, reflecting various strategies being argued behind the scenes in the Pentagon. They mostly agreed that it would be a long and difficult fight, requiring hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and broad support from allies.

The Bush administration is determined to overthrow Saddam, but it is still formulating its plans and was not prepared to send witnesses to the first of the hearings. When they resume in September, after the current August recess, the committee chairman, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., a Delaware Democrat, says the White House has indicated that it may be ready to participate.

The hearings thus can enable the Senate, in the old phrase, to be in on the take-off as well as the landing. And the American people can at last hear the pros and cons of what looks like another long, bloody and expensive war.