Congress and the president face national defense issues that go beyond Iraq funding

The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse strings, and some control over what the president, even as commander in chief, can do with the nation's armed forces. The Constitution also gives the president the power of the veto, and in so doing gives the president a measure of control over congressional appropriations.
What's happened so far in the 2007 battle over funding for the war in Iraq certainly would not shock the political sensibilities of the Founders, and it shouldn't alarm Americans today -- not Republicans or Democrats or independents.
Succinctly stated, the Democratic Congress does not intend to give a Republican president a blank check, and President Bush will not sign a bill that sets deadlines for withdrawal of the troops he sent into battle.
Room for compromise
There's a lot of room to work between those extremes, and, in the not-too-distant future, Congress and President Bush are going to have to reach an agreement that provides the money necessary to support the troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.
No matter how much poking and prodding either side does -- whether it be out of sincere conviction or for partisan political gain -- some sort of compromise is going to have to be reached because each side has a responsibility to do so.
At issue is a 124 billion spending bill, of which about 21 billion is not directly related to war costs. The White House and some Republicans -- those who don't have their own projects in the bill -- have attacked the add-ons.
Their indignation is hard to take seriously. In the six years that Bush was in the White House and the Republicans controlled Congress, federal spending rose by about 50 percent, and Bush never vetoed a spending bill -- including supplemental appropriations bills for the war that were fat with pork.
Loading up must-pass bills with pet projects that would never pass on their own is dishonest and should be stopped. But it's not going to stop with this bill.
Compromise language on getting the troops out of Iraq will be the key to passage of a bill that the president won't veto.
Withdrawal disagreement
Democrats say that troop withdrawals will put pressure on Iraqi factions to seek workable political compromises. Republicans counter that insurgents will simply wait out a U.S. withdrawal and then revolt.
There is no way to prove or disprove the contention of either side.
The benchmark that Congress should be looking at now is that suggested by the new commander on the ground, Gen. David Petraeus, who testified two weeks ago that he won't know until September whether the new U.S. strategy based on a troop surge is working.
The Democrats have made their point that they support withdrawal, but they don't have the political horsepower to effect that policy over the president's veto.
They should drop withdrawal dates and approve an appropriations bill. If they want to put pressure on the administration, they could include language that prohibits the use of the money to deploy any soldier who does not have the proper training, equipment and rest to go into a combat zone. The president would be hard-pressed to veto that.
Congress should abandon its attempt to impose withdrawal dates in this round of supplemental funding.
What it should not do is abandon its demands for accountability from the administration.
A crisis is mounting
U.S. armed forces are being worn down, and their weapons of war are being worn out. It is past time for the administration to answer specifically how it plans to rebuild the armed forces and what that will cost, in addition to the immediate cost of pursing the war.
Whatever assessment Gen. Petraeus gives in September of the success or failure of the surge, Congress must ask and the administration must be forced to answer how long it intends to keep American military men and women in Iraq and at what levels.
There have been suggestions by opponents of the war that President Bush is loathe to abandon Iraq on his watch, and that he is stalling for time so that troop withdrawal will fall to his successor.
Last month, 104 soldiers and Marines died in the war. That's about three per day. Those lives are tragic losses for their families, their friends and their country. But the loss of even one life because of political gamesmanship would go beyond tragic.
Historian's eye
Gen. Petraeus is not only a commander, but a student of history whose Ph.D. dissertation was "The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam." He is already on record as saying that military action is necessary to improve security, but that eliminating an insurgency requires a political solution.
Congress and the nation will have to trust that four months from now his assessment of the situation in Iraq will reflect both history and honesty. The president will have the first opportunity to react to the general's report. Congress will have every right to make its appraisal as well, and to take its own action within its constitutional responsibility to delegate the powers of war and to appropriate the funds necessary to pursue war.