Playing war politics

Excerpts from his blog, Postman on Politics

U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, says Democrats are politicizing the Iraq war by repeatedly voting on withdrawal resolutions. He thinks Republican senators who recently have called for a change of course — at least those up for re-election next year — also are injecting politics into war planning.

At this point, the second-term congressman will not abide anything that interrupts the so-called troop surge implemented by Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees all U.S. forces in Iraq.

"When you try to dismantle a plan that has been put in place before it has the opportunity to come to fruition, you are politicizing the effort and you make it difficult," Reichert said in an interview.

He still firmly supports President Bush. The congressman is a former King County sheriff, and he frequently relates what's going on with the war to police work. He sees parallels between criticism aimed at Bush and criticism during his most famous case, the hunt for the Green River Killer.

"During Green River we were just hammered on by the press and the community and I got hammered by people and criticized, and I just feel some of the same pressures are being applied to the president," Reichert said.

What's new about Reichert's view is that he sees a day coming when it could be time to force a change in the course of the war. He wants to wait at least until September, when Petraeus is due to give a full progress report on the troop surge.

Only a handful of Republicans has said they would vote to end the surge today. But more and more Republicans are looking to the end of summer to change course.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on TV this week: "I think everybody anticipates that there's going to be a new strategy in the fall. I don't think we'll have the same level of troops, in all likelihood, that we have now."

So by September there may be an easy consensus that a new direction is needed. But as he looks two months down the line, Reichert has yet to soften his rhetoric about Democratic opposition to the current war plan.

"To me it feels like very much like General Pelosi [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] wants to run this war. I have my faith in General Petraeus," Reichert said.

But, if come September Iraqis continue to miss benchmarks and evidence of success is lacking, it'll be time for Republicans to speak up, too, he says. Again, Reichert uses a police analogy about what would happen if he were the SWAT commander on a troublesome mission.

"At some point, if I'm not making any progress, the sheriff will come to me and say, 'Lieutenant, what's going on?' And if I don't have the right answers, the direction is going to change," he said.

Even at that point, though, Reichert will look for a middle ground. He says the Iraqi government may never feel it is strong enough to govern the country without the presence of U.S. troops.

But, Reichert said, "we're going to have to slowly withdraw, giving them more and more of that responsibility and putting them on the hot seat for maintaining control, peace and order in their country."

He suggested the first moves would be to "retreat a little and move out of the intense center of the battle." Until then, Reichert will keep doing what he's doing.

"It will be unpopular for a while," he said.

This material has been edited for print publication.

David Postman is The Seattle Times' chief political reporter. Reach him at 360-236-8267 or at dpostman@seattletimes.com