Running on Empty

The American war effort is running low on cash and experts say that the military needs a supplemental increase in spending soon, the Washington Post reports. The White House's position is that, to the contrary, there is plenty of money to pay for all operations and there will be no need to ask Congress for more until early next year, well after the elections.

The Administration's reticence is understandable. Asking for more money now on the heels of the previous request for 87 billion to fund operations tends to suggest (a) that the Administration hasn't been forthcoming about the real costs of its Iraq venture, (b) that the Administration doesn't have a good plan for winning the war, (c) that our forces are increasingly getting bogged down by insurgents, (d) that the entire Iraq venture is a sinkhole and a serious error of judgment, or (e) all of the above.

Moreover, a renewed debate over appropriations would call into question whether the Administration has a clue about how to resolve the Iraq situation. Congressmen and Senators will certainly want the Administration to make a good showing that it has a plan that can work before they start throwing more money down the sewer. After all tax cuts, the new Medicare bill, and the Bush Administration's multiple other spending priorities have already produced enormous deficits. Why throw good money after bad and risk wrecking economic recovery in the process?

Thus, the Administration has abundant political reasons not to ask for more money now, because it wants to avoid a whole host of embarrassing questions about its stewardship of the country. Even so, it has no good policy reasons for failing to ask for more money. American troops need to be fully funded if they are to have any chance at waging the war successfully. Squeezing the troops to avoid having to answer difficult questions about one's policies is simply not a good strategy for winning a war, and, not to put to fine a point on it, it's not in the least bit patriotic either.

Either we make the effort and the sacrifices necessary to win this thing, stabilize Iraq, and put it on the road to a semblance of democracy, or we should stop needlessly sacrificing lives. The one thing we should not do is help secure defeat by half-hearted measures that are politically convenient to those in power. We've been down that road before; it did not turn out at all well.