Making His Case

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Administration officials are still working out their plan for answering those questions in a way that will show Americans that war, as terrible as it is, is the least costly course possible. Saddam, they will argue, is dangerous now and will grow only more dangerous as he builds his arsenal of gases and poisons and searches for a nuclear weapon. There is a sense, at least inside the Beltway, that Bush will eventually win the support he needs. But the issues haven't yet been fully aired, and to the extent that there has been debate, it has occurred largely within the President's party, between the brain trust of the current President Bush and the veterans of his father's Administration. Democrats have been nearly silent on the merits of an invasion, perhaps because there's no point wasting a bullet when, for now, there are plenty of Republicans to do it for them (and perhaps because so many Dems have been in Washington long enough to regret their votes against the first President Bush's war against Saddam).

With the country hurtling toward possible conflict, it's almost hard to recall how much in disarray the Administration's Iraq policy was just a week or two ago. Before the President launched his new offensive, the oddly public dissension among his top aides threatened to unhinge his war wagon altogether. Vice President Dick Cheney articulated the hard line, arguing that inaction was tantamount to appeasement, even as Secretary of State Colin Powell talked up a far milder next step: getting U.N. arms inspectors back into Iraq. So jarring had been the dissonance that when Bush summoned congressional leaders to the White House last Wednesday to ask lawmakers to unite behind his Iraq policy, House International Relations Committee chairman Henry Hyde said the President's team should do so first. "The Administration has to speak with one voice," he said.

Intentionally or not, by pushing lawmakers to focus on Iraq, the Administration is deflecting issues that might have caused trouble for the Republicans this election season, like the shaky economy, shrinking 401(k)s and a litany of CEO wrongdoing. A popular President is pushing Congress to vote on Iraq before Election Day, Nov. 5, and the timing could put lawmakers on the spot. Early this year, Bush adviser Karl Rove boasted, "We can go to the country on this [war on terrorism] issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America." That said, some Democratic strategists still insist that come November pocketbook issues, not Iraq, will drive the election. Recent history bolsters the argument: in the 1990 midterm election, another time of economic malaise, Republicans lost eight House seats and one Senate seat, even as the first President Bush was sending troops by the thousands to the Persian Gulf.