A subtle shift on Iraq policy
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Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett haven't abandoned support for President Bush's Iraq war strategy, but both of them are casting furtive glances at the exit door.
That much is obvious from recent statements by both men.
While Hatch says he saw improvement on the ground during a visit to Iraq in May, he's waiting until an expected progress report by Gen. David Patraeus in September to decide whether or not the United States should begin drawing down troops. That is somewhat less than the full-throated support he gave in June 2006. On the senator's Web site (http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.View&PressRelease_id=1599) you can still read his statement, which included the then-popular "cut and run" line of GOP rhetoric and the conflating of Iraq and 9/11 al-Qaida attacks: "Mr. President, let me be clear: We got into the war committed to success, and I'm never going to allow us to cut and run. Let me remind everyone that bin Laden inspired his followers with his view that America was easy to defeat. Let's not do anything to confirm his skewed vision. When we leave Iraq, let's make sure it's stable and secure enough to defend itself."
A year later, Hatch has found some potential wiggle room. He will judge whether or not to join other Republican senators calling for adherence to the Iraq Study Group's opinion that U.S. combat troops should be reduced and the military focus placed more squarely on training Iraqi troops.
In fact, Bennett has recently thrown his support to a bill in the Senate that would begin to implement some of the Iraq Study Group's recommendations regarding troop strength and the focus of their mission in Iraq.
Bennett, in a recent KUED interview, said he's not quite to the place where Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar finds himself -- advocating U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and refocusing efforts on peace and renewed diplomacy in the broader Middle East -- but allows that Lugar could be right. "I'm willing to give (the president's Iraq policy) a little more time than he is. My own sense of things is that when Gen. Patraeus comes in September, he's going to tell us the surge is working and give us anecdotal evidence -- there's plenty of anecdotal evidence now that the surge is working. But, what's you're definition of working."
Despite some positive developments, though, Bennett wondered, "Now, do we have a matrix out of which a viable Iraqi government can arise? And the signs are not there that that is happening. ... But if the Iraqis can't get their act together, we can't do it for them -- at which point we're going to have to leave. ... I'm willing to wait a little while longer before coming to that conclusion."
Utah is the last bastion of support for President Bush's presidency, with about 50 percent of Utahns approving of his leadership at home and abroad. (The national poll numbers are below 30 percent.)
But that means the state is finally coming close to the tipping point. Perhaps it is not so ironic, then, that Hatch and Bennett find themselves reflecting that view -- they're edging closer to tipping against Bush's war policy, too.
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