Breaking: Edwards Restates Iraq Position He’s Had for Months

(Photo via the Edwards campaign.)

The New York Times would like you to think it has a major scoop from the campaign trail today:

John Edwards says that if elected president he would withdraw the American troops who are training the Iraqi army and police as part of a broader plan to remove virtually all American forces within 10 months.

. . . In one of his most detailed discussions to date about how he would handle Iraq as president, Mr. Edwards staked out a position that would lead to a more rapid and complete troop withdrawal than his principal rivals, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who have indicated they are open to keeping American trainers and counterterrorism units in Iraq.

Well, it’s phrased a bit more explicitly, but I’m not sure how different it is (especially in practice) from the positions of Obama and Clinton, both of whom have said they would get the U.S. out of the business of training de facto Shiite sectarian militias (the recent double game of training Sunni militias too has yet to be remarked on specifically by the candidates, but I assume they’re opposed to that as well).

It also doesn’t appear to be a departure from the basic plan Edwards has been calling for on the campaign trail for months — a comparison the story’s author, Michael Gordon, is careful to avoid even as he vaguely implies hypocrisy by citing the candidate’s different stances in 2002 and 2005.

There’s another notable absence in the article, as Gordon (who is infamous for his administration-friendly stenography reporting about Iraq) makes clear what he thinks the real news is about Edwards’ remarks:

Mr. Edwards’s plan, like that of many of his Democratic opponents, is at odds with the strategy developed by American military commanders, who have said the situation is still too fragile to set a timetable for such extensive troop withdrawals and a curtailment of the training effort in Iraq.

. . . Mr. Edwards, who has never visited Iraq, said he asked the Pentagon last year to help arrange a visit but was turned down. (Mr. Obama visited Iraq once two years ago, while Mrs. Clinton has made three trips.) Geoff Morrell, the senior Defense Department spokesman, said the Pentagon had turned down all requests to visit Iraq from politicians who are not currently serving in Congress or as governors, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, a candidate for the Republican nomination.

. . . In the interview, Mr. Edwards spoke comfortably about the subject and without notes or help from policy advisers. Some elements of his plan, however, run counter to assessments by intelligence agencies, military officers and a Congressionally mandated study.

American military commanders have publicly cautioned that a rapid withdrawal of troops risks a new escalation of sectarian violence, which has been substantially reduced in recent months.

Curse that impudent Edwards! How dare this know-nothing (um, who spoke extemporaneously and in detail on the subject without notes) who hasn’t even been to Iraq (because the administration wouldn’t let him go) question the judgment of our military commanders?!

But wait — did those commanders come up with their opinions entirely on their own? Do they decide this country’s Iraq policy unilaterally, without any outside influence? Don’t we have, like, a president who exercises some influence (oh, and sometimes a veto) over the military honchos?

Not in Gordon’s article, we don’t — the words "President Bush" don’t appear in the story anywhere. It’s that nasty demagogue John Edwards who’s injecting politics into our Iraq policy; didn’t you know that?

(P.S.  Via Matt Yglesias, here’s the full transcript of the Edwards NYT interview.  Similar interviews were done with Obama in November and Clinton back in March.)

Related posts:

1. The End of the Delusion in Iraq
2. Max Baucus Wastes Months, Fails; New York Times Misses It
3. Progressive Caucus, Please Clarify Your Position on “Triggers”
4. In Iraq, As in So Many Contexts, Withdrawal is Victory
5. Donna Edwards, Where Are You?