SECURITY SETS THE DEADLINE

Despite what appears to be increasingly organized militia attacks on U.S. troops, President Bush says he will stick with the June 30 deadline to hand over power in Iraq while reducing the number of troops there. But the lack of a plan for how the handover will occur and whether reducing troops endangers those left in Iraq have yet to be adequately answered.

These are crucial issues, and the president would share no shame if he were to decide that safety and the prospects of a secure Iraqi government were placed ahead of an arbitrary deadline. The White House especially should reconsider after Sen. Richard Lugar, Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when asked on ABC’s “This Week” whether it was time to rethink the deadline, replied, “It may be, and I think it’s probably time to have that debate.”

Sen. Lugar, among the most knowledgeable in the Senate on the subject of Iraq and a friend of the administration, has further suggested that plans for meeting the transition deadline are inadequate. It is a point reflected by Sen. Susan Collins, a member of the Armed Services Committee, who recently asked: “What is going to be handed over and who is it going to be handed to?” These are not theoretical questions; they describe the very practical aspects of a complex, potentially bloody transition that will determine whether a stable, respected government can take over and the United States can safely withdraw or civil war will follow.

The pivotal events in Fajullah highlighted this. Are there well-trained police and military forces that can protect a government, arrest those carrying out attacks on officials, protect the citizenry, safeguard elections? And as eagerly as many Americans are to successfully withdraw from Iraq, beginning in the next several months as troop levels are scheduled to fall from 135,000 to about 110,000, the safety of the troops remaining must take precedence over declarations of victory.

Throughout the occupation of Iraq, a vigorous debate, occasionally partisan, mostly not, has continued over whether the United States and its allies have sufficient numbers of troops there. There is no definitive answer to the question, but if the stories are true that the current troops serving there are stretched thin, drawing down troops to be replaced, in part, by Iraqi soldiers raises many security risks.

Without waiting until late spring, when the mere presence of a deadline can produce crises of its own, the president would do well to emphasize security and a firm plan over a date to ensure the success of the Iraqi transition.