To: Interested Parties
From: Rand Beers and the staff of the National Security Network
Re: The evolving debate on National Security

This week progressives across the policy, advocacy and legislative communities made a strong joint effort to put the Petraeus-Crocker hearings into the wider context of our national security strategy today and going forward. We asked important questions about America’s safety, military readiness, what the plan for success is and what commitments this Administration is making to Iraq without the advice and consent of Congress.

These arguments found resonance in the media and with the public. In response, President Bush admitted that we will have to suspend indefinitely the departure of troops from Iraq; pressed on security guarantees, State Department Iraq adviser and career diplomat David Satterfield summed up the tone of the week: “Other than the fact that it violates the Constitution, statute law, common sense and the overwhelming judgment of the American people, this is a sensible thing to do.”

We pass on to you below some of the week’s key themes – that we believe will continue to be effective in the weeks ahead -- as we saw them.

Iraq is not making America safer. We heard more this week about stress being put on our ground forces, the neglect of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the strains on our economy. All demonstrate that the war is not making Americans safer. Ambassador Crocker himself affirmed under tough questioning from Senator Biden that Al Qaeda on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border is a bigger threat to the United States than Al Qaeda in Iraq. And Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullen acknowledged that "We'd need to come down a certain number of brigades before we could start to meet the . . . legitimate force requirements that we have in Afghanistan that we just can't fill."

Iraq is harming America’s military readiness. In the wake of the hearings, President Bush announced that future deployments would be decreased from 15 months to 12 months though he has not specified how this will be done. However , the country’s military leaders, including Vice Chief of Staff of the Army General Cody, testified this week that our forces will continue to remain under tremendous strain and that the Army is “out of balance.”

George Bush has no plan and no definition of success for Iraq. This week, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker repeatedly speculated about the downside implications of leaving Iraq - but they refused to make any projections of what staying will look like. The argument was simple: if things get worse, the U.S. must stay to secure a deteriorating situation. If things get better, the U.S. must stay to make sure that the situation doesn’t again get worse. Only adding to this confusion was the fact that Prime Minister Maliki again this week told President Bush he disagrees with Petraeus’s “wait and see” plan, calling for US troops to be removed from Iraq.

Conservatives are trying to make Iran America’s new enemy in Iraq. Last year, we had to stay in Iraq because of al Qaeda. Now Senator McCain and other conservatives say that the threat is Iran . But as Senator Jack Reed and General Petraeus both pointed out, the Iranians are actually supporting all of the various Shi’a groups in Iraq, including those in league with the central government.

The Bush Administration is negotiating a long term U.S. commitment to Iraq, with no intention to give Congress or the next Administration a say. In hearings on Thursday with Condoleezza Rice’s advisor on Iraq, David Satterfield, Democrats and Republicans both made clear that any agreement that involved a U.S. security commitment should be approved by Congress. The Administration has claimed that the agreement will not tie the hands of the next President and is non-binding for both sides. But if the Iraqis perceive it to be a binding agreement, then the next Administration will be put in the awkward position of being forced to abrogate an agreement, something that will not reflect well internationally.

The Iraqis are building a large financial surplus while the United States continues to foot the bill. We are still paying more then $10 billion a month to have American forces in Iraq, and our forces continue to pay more then $3 per gallon for gasoline even as our economy dips into a recession. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is experiencing a windfall as oil prices have caused a dramatic increase in its foreign reserves.

John McCain’s foreign policy credentials come into question. John McCain once again confused Shi’a and Sunni, not once, but twice …bringing such incidents in the past month to five. In fact, the NY Times reported that conservatives are concerned that McCain “is not as fully formed on his foreign policy as his campaign advisers say he is, and that while he speaks authoritatively, he operates too much off the cuff and has not done the deeper homework required of a presidential candidate.”