No good time, but U.S. must exit Iraq

There is no good time to walk away from a war that has spurred hideous violence and bloodshed in a country the U.S. is supposedly helping. There is no good time.

President Bush is trying to plug the political dikes on his Iraq policy, urging Republicans especially to wait a little longer before approving a timetable for bringing troops home. The president is fired up, telling Congress it has no business dictating war policy. He seems to think saying it firmly will persuade Republicans on the fence to hold on until September, when Army Gen. David Petraeus is expected to issue a fuller assessment of the progress — or lack thereof — of the U.S. troop surge.

The magic of September for making the difficult decision becomes less compelling every day.

Republican senators changing their minds on the war know exactly the date on the calendar. They want to stop pretending that if we wait just a little longer, the ill-fated war policy might work.

Basic forces at work in Iraq — the civil-war-like conditions, general assumptions of war strategy and realities of life in Iraq — are unlikely to change significantly between now and September.

U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe, Richard Lugar and Pete Domenici, Republicans from Maine, Indiana and New Mexico, respectively, have changed their minds. They don't want to sit idly by while Bush heads down to the ranch for August R&R and Iraq spins further out of control.

The July report on progress in Iraq offers few reasons to wait until September.

Legislation that passed the House last week would begin redeploying troops within 120 days and complete transition to a limited military presence by April 1.

Republican Congressman Dave Reichert of Washington voted with the president, and missed a big opportunity to distinguish himself. This is the direction our country has to take.

Democrats have little to crow about because, for all the rhetoric, for all the public disgust over Iraq war policy, the margin of support in the House was only 223-201, not close enough to the two-thirds vote required to override a presidential veto.

The Senate may do better, especially if more Republicans agree to change their minds. Republicans and Democrats increasingly don't want to go into the August recess having left this awful business untended.

There is no good time to get out of Iraq, but once we know we must leave, there is no excuse to put off the decision. Delay is also a decision, the wrong one with enormous costs in human life.