Canadians could learn from this week's drama in Washington, where – surprise – substance trumped style
WASHINGTON–Canadians watching the "war over the war'' in Washington might want to file this week away for future reference when the country is inevitably immersed in its own debate over the fate of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
There are lessons to be learned from the congressional hearings into the Iraq war, from the role of the Prime Minister to the nature of parliamentary debate.
No matter how decorated, how brave, how intelligent, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus was never going to be able to pad his resume by being a front man for a discredited president. As career moves go, it was the political equivalent of diving on a grenade.
But behind the political posturing, the fevered rhetoric and the presidential jockeying here this week, some answers broke out.
Some honesty and candour snuck into the assessment of the war in Iraq and some legislators – certainly not all – tucked away their ambitions and tendency to preen and asked tough questions meant to illicit understanding, not sound bites.
And here's where Canada could benefit from the U.S. system.
As former U.S. diplomat David Jones, who was posted to Ottawa during the 1990s noted, the U.S. committee system is a "serious opportunity to ask serious questions of serious leaders who have to answer them,'' – something that should be intrinsic to Question Period, but is not.
George W. Bush has, over the years, provided a textbook example of how to squander support for a military mission, something which should be studied, then studied again, at 24 Sussex Dr.
But, even though Bush has never been knocked off course, the Washington debate has revealed a political system that works when it comes to oversight, accountability and the extraction of information for both Congress and the public.
Certainly, positions on the war have not moved here, but if you're paying attention, you are able to at least make an informed choice.
Petraeus may yet suffer the debilitating collateral damage endured by Colin Powell when he was pushed by Bush to sell the war at the United Nations, but the top military commander in Iraq did provide invaluable input to an important debate.
There is a third lesson as well, but this is one that goes beyond Iraq and Afghanistan and has always been a military truism.
It is much easier to commit troops to a war than it is to bring them home.
If the first lesson is Bush's failure to communicate, it is not through lack of exposure.
Eight times since 2003, he has gone on prime time television to first sell his war, then plead for time. He deals with Iraq at regular press conferences, in weekly radio addresses, in his annual State of the Union speech and in every media availability with a visiting leader.
But you can't sell a war on deception, turn every new phase of a conflict into a new bumper sticker slogan, bluff your way through with bully boy, frat-house pronouncements and change your war rationale with each setback.
Paul Frazer, a former Canadian ambassador who is now a Washington consultant, points to another area where Bush lost support.
"In Canada and the U.S., support has always been solid for the troops, but here the president was not seen to be supporting them by providing them with proper armour and equipment,'' Frazer said.
Frazer said Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government must always provide the best possible tools for Canadian soldiers if he wants to maintain voter support.
"You're asking young Canadian to make the ultimate sacrifice,'' Frazer said. "Give them the tools to do the job.''
Frazer also says Canadian ministers must get out of the theatre of Question Period, leave Ottawa, and sell the mission as a Canadian commitment to NATO, not a George W. mission.
"Keep the goal as clear as possible and communicate it, communicate it, communicate it, because you don't reach everybody at the same time.''
Nowhere in the world could a war be more surgically dissected and debated than it is in Washington, with expert opinion and emotional pleas swirling around this capital daily.
In the U.S., congressional committee hearings play the role of daily Question Period in Ottawa. In their newly-released book Uneasy Neighbors, former MP David Kilgour and former U.S. diplomat Jones call Question Period one of "the great parliamentary institutions,'' at least in the abstract.
The two men also concede the lack of a Question Period spares Americans "puerile exchanges between cavorting jackanapes'' which elicit insults, not answers.
During 13 hours of questioning over two days, legislators did get answers from Petraeus and the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker. Crocker did not try to pretend there was political progress in Iraq where there was none.
"I've got to be honest,'' he said. "This is going to take more time.''
He offered no assurance of success. When Republican John Warner, a World War II veteran and one-time navy secretary who will retire after 30 years as a Virginia senator, asked Petraeus whether the Iraq mission was making America safer, Petraeus admitted he didn't know.
From a distance – and indeed from this vantage point – it is tempting to write off the U.S. system as a failure because Democrats have been unable to end an unpopular war. But, in fact, the U.S. Congress may be reflecting an ambivalent electorate that knows Iraq is a mess now, but could be a bigger mess when Americans pull out.
"The intellectual challenge here has been that no one has been able to make a case for how to get out quickly, bloodlessly and efficiently,'' says Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess.
"We created this war. So now we have a responsibility to Americans who have died and certainly to Iraqis who have been killed.''
A cumbersome system sometimes appears to be set up for gridlock, but the stars do align to allow action when they must, Hess says.
"Sometimes it's painful to watch and it should be kept out of the view of small children, but the system ultimately works,'' he said.
Tim Harper is a former Star
Ottawa bureau chief.
