Jonathan Gurwitz, writing in the San Antonio Express News, points out that certain supposedly anti-Iraq war Congressmen can't afford to let the Iraq war end. *cough* John Murtha *cough*.
You know the situation in Iraq has improved when the U.S. military starts to receive criticism for inflating security threats.
That's what happened last month when the Defense Department asked Congress for $1.4 billion in emergency spending to combat sniper attacks.
As USA Today reported, the Pentagon based its request on the assertion that sniper attacks have quadrupled over the past year and eventually might outpace improvised explosive devices as the top killer of U.S. personnel. USA Today questioned the data and, after a review, discovered the rate of sniper attacks has actually declined slightly in 2007. During the past four months, it has declined precipitously.
A Defense Department official conceded that the quadrupled claim was a mistake. The Pentagon modified the justification for the spending request. And since Kongsberg Defense and Aerospace, a Norwegian company that supplies the Army with countersniper technology systems, has a plant in Johnstown, Pa., the hometown of appropriator in chief Rep. John Murtha, it's a safe bet the request will survive.
As Gurwitz points out, there are earmarks at stake, and Murtha is the pork king. More importantly, Gurwitz also points out how the entire debate has changed:
It's also a lesson, more importantly, about the changing terms of the debate surrounding the Iraq war. Back in March, the new congressional majority bandied about resolutions calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by August 2008, March 2008 and even, as stipulated in the Iraq Redeployment Act of 2007, within 180 days, which means the United States would by now have abandoned the Iraqi people.
Remember the logic of those resolutions? The presence of American troops was the destabilizing source of Iraq's deplorable security situation. The insurgency was the understandable homegrown response to military occupation. The surge would, therefore, only make matters worse by increasing instability and stoking the insurgency.
That, of course, has not happened. Instead the new tactics along with the increased number of troops has actually changed things quite a lot. It is not all rosy and there is still much to do. But even Democratic candidates are shying away from calling for the troops home now.
After all, there's pork for Murtha at stake.
