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Mission: Impossible to Know; Mass. Pol Blasts Bush's Fuzzy Plans for Iraq

Posted on: Sunday, 20 November 2005, 18:00 CST

By Peter Gelzinis

While it can be argued that Iraq may not be the mirror image of Vietnam, one fact is irrefutable: The more President Bush opens his mouth these days, the louder you hear LBJ's voice.

Some 40 years ago, the White House drawl was all about finally being able to see "the light at the end of the tunnel."

Today, LBJ's Texas successor finds himself working to stifle a growing chorus of discontent by insisting it would be treason, if not downright un-American, to extricate ourselves from Iraq "before our mission was accomplished."

U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano said yesterday he has no particular quarrel with "accomplishing the mission," if only Bush would say what that mission is.

"The president won't tell us what he means," Capuano said yesterday, back home in Somerville after Friday night's explosive House debate on withdrawing from Iraq.

"What is our mission?" Capuano asked. "We know it isn't about WMD. If it was to get rid of Saddam . . . well, we did that quite a while ago. If the mission was to let the Iraqis govern themselves, there'll be an election in two weeks. How long after that are we expected to stay? All the president keeps saying is, `As long as it takes.' But what exactly does that mean?"

Like LBJ, Bush's answer may be the proverbial riddle wrapped in an enigma. But the partisan meltdown on the House floor was proof, Capuano said, that Congress can no longer detach itself from the growing public sentiment "that we really don't belong in Iraq anymore."

Capuano called the impassioned dissent of his veteran colleague, Pennsylvania's John "Jack" Murtha, a "watershed moment," not unlike the moment, four decades ago, when Murtha's friend and political mentor, Tip O'Neill, rose in opposition to Vietnam.

"(Jack) is not some lefty," Capuano said. "He's a Marine combat veteran, a political icon who has always comported himself as a moderate Democrat and fervent supporter of our military.

"It wasn't Jack Murtha's resolution we voted on (Friday night)," Capuano said. "If the Republican leadership had put the Murtha resolution out there, I can tell you it would've come close to passing."

Instead, the intentionally absurd resolution quickly offered up by the California Republican, Duncan Hunter, calling for an immediate Iraqi pullout, gave queasy pols an easy way out . . . for the moment.

"What you saw Friday night," said Capuano, "is the same kind of steady drip . . . drip . . . drip that happened to Nixon and Johnson before him. Nothing Bush can do is going to be able to stop the debate about leaving Iraq. Certainly not the kind of stupid political gamesmanship you saw Friday night."

As the man who now sits in Tip O'Neill's chair, Mike Capuano said he's formed a special friendship with Jack Murtha. He knows the beloved Marine colonel and decorated Vietnam veteran is much too big a genie to ever be stuffed back in the bottle.

"When someone of Jack's stature speaks from his gut like this," Capuano said, "he offers political cover for all those moderate Republicans looking for a way to do the same thing."

Before too long Jack Murtha's watershed moment on the Iraq war will be joined by a few others. Mike Capuano noted that come this April, our soldiers will have spent more time fighting in Iraq than their forefathers did fighting overseas in World War I.

By August of next year, we will have eclipsed the time we spent fighting World War II. And if casualties continue at the present rate, a year from now we could hit the figure of 2,986 U.S. soldiers killed . . . or one soldier for every person who died on 9/11.

Their deaths were supposed to be avenged in Afghanistan. If this milestone is reached and there is still no light at the end of the Iraq tunnel, Jack Murtha will be the least of Bush's problems.

Source: Boston Herald

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