No one can be happy about the situation in Iraq, but the media do the public a serious disservice when they misrepresent the choices available. The Wall Street Journal commits this sin today when it quotes a senior fellow at a “liberal think tank” as saying “whatever you think should happen in Iraq, the fact is we have troops there and we have to fund them.”
Actually, we don’t have to fund the troops to be in Iraq. If Congress chose, it could summon the commander of our forces to devise a plan for a safe withdrawal of our troops and calculate a price tag. It could then appropriate the money needed to carry through this task — end of story, end of funding.
The senior fellow at a liberal think tank may not like that option, but it is one that exists, and the Wall Street Journal should not have uncritically presented a quote that implied otherwise.
–Dean Baker
