MR. BUSH REPORTS

 Editorial de  “The Washington Post” del 08.09.2003

President Bush last night made clearer than ever that the U.S. commitment to Iraq will be costly, in dollars as well as in human casualties. It's a message he should have been delivering since before the war began. It is welcome now, though, as is his willingness to specify to Congress how much money he will seek for Iraq and Afghanistan security and reconstruction in the coming fiscal year. Mr. Bush is right to say that the United States must stay the course in both countries, and he is right to seek substantial resources for the task. But that's only the beginning of a conversation. Congress will and should ask many questions.

One set of questions has more to do with America's economic future than with Iraq's. For two years the president has been warning that the war on terror will be long and arduous. He now acknowledges that the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, important components of that war, themselves will cost tens of billions of dollars. And yet he refuses to adjust for that reality in the budgets he proposes. He argues for more and more tax cuts that would prevent the government from paying both for the war and for domestic needs. Congress cannot follow the president's irresponsible lead on this score.

Some will criticize Mr. Bush for failing last night to provide a timetable or an exit strategy for U.S. troops in Iraq. But the president was right to focus the nation's attention on important goals in Iraq, not artificial deadlines. Others will note, more fairly, that he barely mentioned the weapons of mass destruction that were a major justification for war. Sooner rather than later he must answer questions about prewar intelligence and postwar revelations.

For Iraq's future, though, probably the most important questions concern the president's commitment to seek allied help in Iraq. He said last night that enlisting support from other nations is a major goal. But on Fox News yesterday morning, his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, talked as though going back to the United Nations was mostly a tactic to deliver political cover to nations that can't provide more troops or money without the imprimatur of the United Nations. Many of those nations, though, want more than a fig leaf with a U.N. logo. They want a genuine sharing of political control.

There are understandable reasons the administration may remain reluctant to cede authority in this way. As the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, argues in a column on the facing page today, the occupiers want to transfer authority as quickly as possible to Iraqis. Mr. Bremer writes that the process already is taking place swiftly. The unstated but implied question is whether a new overlord could do anything but slow the process. And the United States wants Iraq to become a federal, peaceful, democratic state in which the rights of women and minorities are respected. Transferring control to an international organization, many of whose members do not cherish the same values, may not increase the likelihood of success.

But the United States is a long way from the ideal in its occupation of Iraq. In the postwar period it has encountered many challenges that the administration did not foresee. A sharing of political authority won't end those challenges. Other countries aren't going to supply enough troops or pony up enough cash to reduce America's burden. But they may help keep that burden from growing even heavier than Mr. Bush's portrayal of it last night.

If the United States retains control over military forces in Iraq while an evolving Iraqi government reports to a U.N. administrator, Americans would lose little in the way of influence while gaining much in international support and credibility for their disavowal of imperial ambitions. It may be that France, wedded more to its anti-American leadership than to a responsible role in the Middle East, would block even such a reasonable compromise. But such a compromise should be the administration's goal.