Confronting the obvious.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Congressional debates on Iraq have never offered much in the way of substance, but that's hardly surprising. Seventy-seven senators and 296 representatives voted to support President Bush's decision to pre-emptively invade Iraq a little over three years ago.

A great many of those lawmakers are genuinely horrified by what has happened in Iraq since then and by what they have learned about the Bush administration's manipulation of intelligence information to justify attacking a sovereign nation that had not attacked the United States. But with midterm elections looming in November, it could be political suicide to admit the truth.

Accordingly, few people are holding their breath in anticipation of today's scheduled debate in the Senate over a Democratic resolution calling for a "phased redeployment" of U.S. forces in Iraq. The Republican majority is doing its best to brand phased redeployment as a euphemism for "cutting and running."

But the Democratic resolution has nothing to do with "cutting and running," which is to the semantics of resolving the Iraq conflict what "death tax" is to the estate tax debate - clever Republican spin designed to evoke a thought-stopping emotional response.

Actually, the resolution, which will be introduced by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, and Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, does nothing more than finally - finally! - confront the obvious. After more than three years, more than 2,500 U.S. military deaths, more than 18,000 U.S. wounded, more than 40,000 Iraqi civilians killed, more than $320 billion spent, more than 54 percent of the American people opposed to the war, more than 70 percent of Iraqis in favor of setting a timetable for withdrawal, the United States cannot remain in Iraq forever.

Yes, for heaven's sake, that involves an honest acknowledgement of nothing more controversial than what Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said last week. Al-Rubaie told CNN that it is possible that fewer than 100,000 coalition troops would be in Iraq by the end of the year, and nearly all would be gone by the end of 2007 or early 2008.

Yet the administration continues to promote the embarrassing hyperbole that setting a timetable "would be an absolute, unmitigated disaster, not merely for the people of Iraq, but the larger war on terror," according to White House spokesman Tony Snow.

It isn't necessary to set a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq to give the Iraqi people a taste of unmitigated disaster. In May 2003, there were no multifatality bombings in Iraq. Last month, there were 56, and insurgents were launching 90 attacks a day. More than 1,500 Iraqi civilians died violently in May. Three years ago, there were two Iraqis kidnapped a day. Last month, 35 a day were abducted.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said Sunday that setting a timetable for a phased redeployment of U.S. troops "signals to people that our resolve is very shaky, that the battle of wills is also shaky."

There are worse things. Refusing to engage in an honest debate about how the United States can extricate its sons and daughters from a war that never should have been launched signals to the American people that the courage and integrity of Congress is much shakier than the nation's resolve.