In the aftermath of last week’s vote, ineffectual and rhetorical as it was, in the House of Representative against the surge of troops to Iraq the administration nevertheless felt obligated to do some damage control. So they sent Tony Snow into the fray. Here he is on CNN’s Late Edition spinning furiously:  

WOLF BLITZER, HOST: Tony Snow, thanks very much for joining us. Let’s get to the issue of the Senate vote yesterday, the House vote earlier in the week. Why shouldn’t the president see these two votes, when taken together, as a vote of no confidence in his new strategy toward Iraq?   

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, for one thing, the strategy has barely had a chance to begin working. The president has made the case to members of the House and Senate: Hey, you guys have been supporting General David Petraeus. The Senate confirmation vote was 81 to nothing. Why not give him the reinforcements he says are necessary to get the job done?   

For those who are doing poll watching, in a recent poll they asked the question, do you want to fully fund the troops? The answer, two-thirds of Americans said yes. One asked, well, what about — would you support cutting off extra funds for people who are going to go in? Sixty percent said no.

So, I think what you’ve got is a situation, Wolf, where Americans are rightfully uneasy about war. We are not happy with the progress of things, which is why the president’s come up with a new strategy for dealing with the challenges in Iraq.

 

And then there was this little statement:  

BLITZER: Here is what Senator Joe Biden, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the other day about the U.S. relationship right now with Iran.   

Listen to this.   

SEN. JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., D-DEL.: The rhetoric coming from the administration about Iran is starting to sound a little like a run-up that we heard to the Iraq War in the fall of 2002.   BLITZER: Is that true? Are you getting ready for a war with Iran?    SNOW: No. And furthermore, Wolf, I am at a total loss to find any place where this administration has been trying to, quote, “create a run-up with a war on Iran.” It is interesting to me that it seems that some politicians maybe are trying to protect Iran. But no. The president has made it clear. We’re not planning a full scale invasion into Iran. Instead, what we have said is, we are pursuing a diplomatic path to get the Iranians to rejoin the international community.     

Of course, Biden and other members of Congress have not been saying that the Bush administration is planning a full-scale invasion of Iran. They have been saying that the U.S. is serious contemplating attacking Iran. Those are two separate military operations. Snow has been around long enough to understand the difference, so was this an example of deliberate disingenuousness on his part? 

The whole Congressional debate about voting yes or no to support sending more troops to Iraq grows more inane by the day. Consider this excerpt from FOX NEWS SUNDAY with Senator Carl Levin:

CHRIS WALLACE: For more on Congress and the Iraq war, we’re joined now by the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Democrat Carl Levin, who comes to us from his home state of Michigan.    Senator, now that the House has passed the anti-surge resolution, and the Senate has not, what’s next? Will the Democrats, in control of Congress, move now to finding measures that would restrict the president?

SEN. CARL LEVIN [D-MI]: Well, we assume it will be thwarted, and that by a filibuster, too. But if we can’t get a non-binding statement passed because of the Republican filibuster, it may be more difficult even, to get a binding resolution passed. But we’re going to continue to try.

WALLACE: Senator, there are several ideas out there about how to change to change course. Either cut off funding; Congressman Murtha, as you know, has come up with the idea of setting benchmarks for how troops could be sent over that he knows the Pentagon can’t meet. Senator Biden is talking about repealing the 2002 authorization to go to war. What approach do you favor?

LEVIN: Well, hopefully we can come up with a bipartisan approach. We’ve got seven Republicans who voted with us yesterday. We hope to pick up at least that many and maybe a few more. I think probably the best approach would be to modify the authorization to the president to go to war in Iraq. That was a wide-open authorization, which allowed him to do just about anything, and put us now deep into combat in Iraq, and now into the neighborhoods of Baghdad.We, I think, will be looking at a modification of that authorization in order to limit the mission of American troops to a support mission, instead of a combat mission. And that is very different from cutting funds. I don’t think there’s support to cut off funds. I think that sends the wrong message to our troops. We’re going to support our troops, but one way to support them is to find a way out of Iraq, earlier rather than later.

WALLACE: So, you’re saying that the idea would be to restate what the authorization Congress gave the president is, and to say that it doesn’t include combat? I’m not quite sure what you’re saying this modified authorization would do.   

LEVIN: Right — it would have — right. The authorization, which the Congress voted for, by about, in the Senate, about 75 to 25, I voted against it, but that’s not the point. We’re there now. That authorization is out there. It’s wide open in telling the president he can go to Iraq and basically carry out any mission that he wants to. What — one thought is that we should limit the mission to a support mission. In other words, an anti-terrorist mission to go after al Qaeda in Iraq, to support and train the Iraqi army, to protect our own diplomatic personnel and other personnel in Iraq, rather than this unlimited mission which was described in the authorization for the use of force. We think that that would be constitutional.

And last, but hardly least, is Tony Snow again on MEET THE PRESS, trying to save face regarding the administration’s attempt to implicate the Iranian government in the supply of explosively formed projectiles to Iraqi insurgents:

RUSSERT: Let me ask a question about Iran, because it’s very much on people’s minds. Last week there was a briefing by defense analysts about the EFPs, explosively formed penetrator, roadside bombs, and here is how it was reported, “Defense analysts said that meant direction for the operation was ‘coming from the highest levels’ of the Iranian government. The very next day, Peter Pace, the ranking military man in American, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, ‘We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se, knows about this. It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it’s clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say, by what I know, that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit,’ overruling the defense analysts.

The next day he went to the podium and seemed to overrule General Pace. You said, “Do we have a signed piece of paper from Mr. Khomeini or from the president of Iran signing off on this? No. But are the Kudz forces part of the government? The answer is yes, and I think this ends up being a semantic dispute about senior levels of the government, and the fact is the government knows about it.’”

Again, Pace, here he is, “That does not translate that the Iranian government, per se, for sure, is directly in doing this.” Who is right, you or General Pace?  

 SNOW: We’re actually both right, because General Pace then held a press conference with Secretary Gates, subsequently, and what did he say? He said we know the government’s involved, we know the Kudz forces are part of the government, and he explained, as I did at the press conference. I didn’t want to put words in his mouth, but I sort of thought this was what he mean — that he didn’t know if one of the top two or three members of the government was directly involved for writing orders. But the Kudz forces are part of the revolutionary guard, which answers to senior levels of government.

So it turns out that I was correct. It was a semantic dispute.  

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4. Winning Turkey’s Support on Iran
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