Captain's Quarters -

The Democrats in Congress have come up with yet another proposal to end the war in Iraq. After the non-binding resolution foundered and the John Murth slow-bleed plan blew up in their faces, the Democrats have hit on their latest strategy -- making President Bush certify troop readiness or allow him to waive the requirements:

Senior House Democrats, seeking to placate members of their party from Republican-leaning districts, are pushing a plan that would place restrictions on President Bush's ability to wage the war in Iraq but would allow him to waive them if he publicly justifies his position.

Under the proposal, Bush would also have to set a date to begin troop withdrawals if the Iraqi government fails to meet benchmarks aimed at stabilizing the country that the president laid out in January.

The plan is an attempt to bridge the differences between anti-war Democrats, led by Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), who have wanted to devise standards of troop readiness strict enough to force Bush to delay some deployments and bring some troops home, and Democrats wary of seeming to place restrictions on the president's role as commander in chief. ...

The new plan would demand that Bush certify that combat troops meet the military's own standards of readiness, which are routinely ignored. The president could then waive such certifications if doing so is in "the national interest."

Democrats hope the waiver and benchmark proposals, whose details were confirmed by aides and senior Democrats close to the House Appropriations Committee and leadership, will keep the policymaking responsibilities on Bush. That should allow the committee to move forward next week with a $100 billion war spending bill.

Well, that's been their wish all along. The Democrats want to force an end to the Iraq theater of the war without having to accept any consequences for their actions. They don't have the political courage to take the one action allowed them, which is to simply end the funding for the deployment. Democrats know that they risk a huge political backlash if they strand troops under fire, and rightfully so.

Instead, they have busied themselves with strategies to force Bush to call off the war and take responsibility for their own defeatism. They tried the non-binding resolution route, which did nothing effectual but attempted to embarrass the White House with other Coalition partners with a no-confidence vote. When that failed, the Democrats tried staging a series of reductions of men and materiel for Iraq. That might have worked, had John Murtha kept his mouth shut, but it fell apart when he announced his intentions on a left-wing website.

Now they want to go back to public humiliation as a motivator for Bush to order the withdrawal on his own. They want to force him to say that troop deployments consist of units not ready -- by Congress' definition -- to enter battle. So far, we have not had problems with the troops we have sent to either Iraq or Afghanistan; they have performed magnificently. The Democrats want to manufacture a controversy where none exists, using the troops as their stooges in order to score cheap shots at the White House during wartime.

All of this maneuvering takes place because the Democrats lack the courage to actually take the one step that could do what they want and end the American military involvement in Iraq. And they wonder why the American people don't trust them on national security.