Free Republic

A vote for war is the most sober, profound, consequential vote that a senator can make. No other vote in an entire career will be remotely as important. So, what is all this backsliding? What are Edwards, Kerry, Rockefeller, et al saying? That they didn’t do their homework? That they took a lax attitude to their duties? They voted in the fullness of their maturity to send their countrymen – the sons and daughters of their constituents – off to danger, possibly death or maiming. And they didn’t consider the consequences? Is that their point? Yes, there was uncertainty. In...

IRAQ STANDS less than 10 days away from a momentous vote on a new constitution, the first of a series of events that in the next several months will make or break the U.S.-backed attempt to unite the country under a new political system. Yet serious discussion of the Iraqi political process in Washington seems to have faded to a whisper. President Bush answered only one question about Iraq during a 55-minute news conference Tuesday; in doing so, he again wrongly described the principal U.S. challenges as defeating Islamic terrorists and training Iraqi forces. There are many flaws in the...

UMM QASR, Iraq — It's hard to smile when there's no water. It's hard to applaud when you're frightened. It's hard to say, "Thank you for liberating me," when liberation has meant that looters have ransacked everything from the grain silos to the local school, where they even took away the blackboard. That was what I found when spending the day in Umm Qasr and its hospital, in southern Iraq. Umm Qasr was the first town liberated by coalition forces. But 20 days into the war, it is without running water, security or adequate food supplies. I went in with...