The editorial page of The Wall Street Journal gets it right concerning the two-faced votes in Congress on aid to Iraq. Why the votes and quasi-votes for extorting a "loan" out of a struggling nation where we want to nurture success?
The issue is whether to exploit Iraq's future oil revenues by giving some of the aid not as a grant, as the White House insists, but as a loan. The Senate voted last week to make $10 billion of its $18.4 billion reconstruction package a loan. Though the House voted all the money as a grant, that schizoid chamber passed a non-binding motion Tuesday instructing conferees to adopt the Senate position.Posted by Alan at October 23, 2003 12:28 AMFor most Democrats, of course, this is politics pure and simple. They see it as an opportunity to tweak Mr. Bush on Iraq policy, where they believe he's vulnerable. But we're having a much harder time fathoming the motivations of the eight Republicans who voted for the loan provision in the Senate, and the 84 who supported the resolution in the House.
Many are probably assuming the President will get his way in the final bill, and that their votes are a cost-free way to be seen protecting the taxpayer. "It's very hard for me to go home and explain that we have to give $20 billion to a country sitting on $1 trillion worth of oil," says South Carolina's Lindsey Graham.
But Congressmen are fooling themselves if they don't think their actions are also being noticed in, say, Tehran, and wherever Saddam and Osama are hiding. The rap on America in the Middle East is that for all its technical military superiority, the country has no patience and no stomach for body bags. Hit them hard enough or long enough, and they will leave before the job is done. Barely six months into the Iraq mission, the Congressional naysayers are giving hope to all those who want us to fail, including the Baathist and jihadi fighters who are attacking our troops.