Congress needs to send a real bill that doesn't hamper the ability to make progress in Iraq and that isn't loaded with pork to the President soon so that the troops can get the funding they need.

This legislation would substitute the mandates of Congress for the considered judgment of our military commanders. This bill assumes and forces the failure of the new strategy even before American commanders in the field are able to fully implement their plans. Regardless of the success our troops are achieving in the field, this bill would require their withdrawal. In addition, the bill could withhold resources needed to enable Iraqi Security Forces to take over missions currently conducted by American troops....

The war supplemental should remain focused on the needs of the troops and should not be used as a vehicle for added non-emergency spending and policy proposals, especially domestic proposals, that should be fully vetted and considered on their own merits, such as minimum wage, various tax proposals, and changes in contracting policy. This bill adds billions in unrequested spending that is largely unjustified and non-emergency.

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Senate Democrats seemed not to mind that both proposals went down to defeat. What mattered, Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) suggested, was that Democrats had gone on record in favor of a "change of course" while Republicans had embraced "an open-ended commitment." Whether or not that political calculation survives Gen. Casey's proposal, it would have been a mistake for the Senate to endorse even the "soft" redeployment language in the Levin-Reed bill. Advisory or not, such a statement could have emboldened Iraqi insurgents.

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AT crucial moments over the past three-plus years, American politicians and American voters have been forced to pass judgment on the war in Iraq - not by pollsters asking a tiny fraction of them how they feel, but through actual votes, either in Congress or at the ballot box. And every time they are asked to pass judgment, they have chosen to wage it, to validate the politicians who supported it, to pay for it and to continue it.

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"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

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U.S. troops should not stay in Iraq, as in Vietnam, purely for pride in a hopeless battle. They should remain, however, as long as there is a reasonable chance that they can bring some stability, reinforce the fledgling democratic government and prevent Iraq from becoming a haven for terrorists. Announcing a timetable for withdrawal, as Sen. John Kerry proposes (Kerry's resolution in the Senate was rejected 93-6 on Thursday), would just invite the insurgents to wait out the American presence.

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Yeah, the good guys. Our troops. And the Iraqi army. We're winning. We were winning big even before we nailed Zarqawi. The terrorists themselves said so. In their state-of-the-troubled-union message to themselves.

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