Iraq’s Political Price Mounts

For Rep. Steven C. LaTourette, the conflict in Iraq hit close to home the day four American contract workers were killed, mutilated and dragged through the streets of Fallouja. One of the four was from LaTourette’s district in the Cleveland suburbs, so it fell to the Republican congressman to call and comfort the victim’s parents.

For Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the home-state price of war became clear when her office got a call from the weeping wife of a reservist whose deployment in Iraq had repeatedly been extended.

Indeed, for all the politicians who have been stalwart supporters of President Bush’s Iraq policy, the conflict is no longer just an abstraction -- their constituents increasingly bear the burden of personal sacrifice for the mission.

Casualties are mounting, sending more loved ones home in coffins. Tours of duty have been prolonged, keeping thousands of troops away from their families longer than expected. And the price tag is growing rapidly, forcing Congress to consider additional war funding at a time when popular domestic programs are being squeezed.

The personal and financial costs are likely to mount through the summer months, during the run-up to the Nov. 2 presidential and congressional elections, because the administration is under pressure to increase its investment in Iraq. Members of both parties are calling for more troops, more money, more vigilance.

That will test public support for U.S. involvement in Iraq -- support that has not significantly diminished even through recent weeks of increased bloodshed and instability. The key political question for Bush and his Republican allies is whether public support will continue if the situation in Iraq is no better -- or if it deteriorates -- by election day.

“Bush will be judged by what happens between now and November,” said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.). “If you have continuing instability, it will be a real political problem for him; if things go well, it will be a real plus.”

What makes Iraq so politically dicey is that, unlike many other issues politicians deal with, war is one whose effect at the grass-roots level is both immediate and painful. That makes Iraq hard to finesse or ignore for members of Congress, who are closest to the domestic costs of the conflict.

“There are difficult decisions ahead,” said Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. “There is going to be a need for more money. With allies pulling troops out, there is more pressure on U.S. troops. The stress of the situation will grow.”

Recent polls have found that a majority of Americans remain in favor of the U.S. military action in Iraq. A Gallup poll conducted April 16-18 for CNN and USA Today found that 52% of those surveyed believed it was worth going to war in Iraq. That was down from a peak of 76% in April 2003, but still significantly more than the 37% who said the U.S. should withdraw some or all of its troops.

What’s more, the poll found that 33% of those surveyed -- the highest level recorded by Gallup in its series of surveys over the last year -- want additional troops to be sent.

Those results reflected the public mood even after several weeks of increased violence and after the Pentagon extended the deployment of 20,000 troops, including 6,000 in the National Guard and Reserve, who had been getting ready to leave Iraq.

With polls showing continued support for the president’s Iraq policy despite the bad news, it is not surprising that Republicans in Congress returned last week from a long recess still backing Bush. But they reported growing unease among voters in their districts, and lawmakers have found in recent weeks that the “constituent service” part of their job has taken a grim turn.

Rep. Mark Green (R-Wis.) has attended three funerals for constituents who died in Iraq -- including one last week for a 23-year-old Marine who had been in combat for only one month. They marked the first times in his six years in Congress that Green has had to call and visit the families of fallen soldiers.

“When you run for Congress, you envision all these things you’re going to do -- make great speeches, pass historic legislation,” Green said. “You don’t envision calling families and saying how terribly sorry you feel because they just lost their 18-year-old son.”

Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) attended a rally in Batavia, Ohio, for a 20-year-old constituent, Army Pfc. Keith Matthew Maupin, who was captured by Iraqi insurgents after his convoy was attacked April 9 and had been shown as a hostage in a video.

“It brings Iraq home into our living room,” said Portman, who wears a yellow ribbon on his lapel in Maupin’s honor. But he said the community’s reaction was “even stronger support for the military.”

Members of Congress also have come under pressure from the relatives of National Guard and Reserve troops. Many families were already stressed by lengthy deployments, and were heartbroken by the latest tour extension, which the Pentagon announced April 14.

Military families have peppered members of Congress with requests to intervene to bring the units home. Relatives of soldiers in one company of the Wisconsin National Guard, which had already spent 13 months in Iraq when the prolonged deployment was announced, put up a website that urged people to get members of Congress involved in reversing the Pentagon’s decision. “They served above and beyond the call of duty, and it is time for them to come home!” the website said.

So far, the Pentagon has not budged.

The woman who called Collins’ office in tears was the wife of a Maine reservist whose unit had been in Iraq for more than a year. On Easter weekend, the reservists were on a bus headed for the plane that was to bring them home when they got the news that their tour was extended for 90 days.

“This has been devastating to the families and demoralizing to many soldiers,” Collins told Pentagon officials at a Senate hearing last week.

Collins later said in an interview that she believed the strain on National Guard and Reserve forces could undermine public confidence in the administration’s policies.

“It raises more concerns about whether the administration properly planned for this stage of the war,” she said.

Some lawmakers have gotten involved in individual cases. A Wisconsin woman with a terminal illness sought the help of her senator, Democrat Herbert Kohl, to persuade the Army to let her 19-year-old son come home from Iraq before she dies. Although the Army initially resisted, the Red Cross notified Kohl on Thursday that her son would be granted a few weeks leave to see his mother.

Republicans face a particularly tricky political balancing act in the coming months, as they try to show support for the president without seeming callous to their constituents’ personal sacrifices. So when Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) recently gave a speech on the Senate floor advocating that the U.S. “stay the course,” he also mourned the loss of 50 men who were from or had been stationed in his home state.

It’s a political climate ripe for bills and news releases designed to demonstrate lawmakers’ concern for the troops. The House last week passed a bill to ease the financial pressures of National Guard and Reserve forces by allowing them to withdraw money from retirement accounts without penalty. On Wednesday, Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) announced a program for individuals to purchase prepaid discount long-distance telephone cards and donate them anonymously to U.S. personnel in Iraq.

“With deployments extended and increased strains placed on our troops, a phone call to a loved one can help our servicemen and women get through these difficult times,” Snowe said.

Rep. Mark E. Souder (R-Ind.), whose district has lost two of the many people it has sent into battle, said he was surprised to find that those sacrifices had intensified, rather than weakened, his district’s support for the U.S. mission in Iraq. But he said that his constituents had limited patience for the anti-American sentiment expressed by Iraqi insurgents, making the situation a “combustible” political issue.

“Most of us -- even those of us who voted for the war -- have a certain amount of angst about this,” Souder said.