A timetable after all

Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

With only five months left to avoid going down in history as having handed an open-ended war in Iraq to its successor, the Bush administration has approved — gasp! — a timetable.

President Bush, his top military advisers and congressional Republicans recoiled three years ago when Democrats supported a timetable to give Iraqi leaders incentive to start taking charge of their destiny.

Insults were hurled at Democrats and even their few Republican supporters. They were demonized by the White House as “defeatists” for advocating a “cut and run” strategy.

Last week, however, the Bush administration announced negotiations with the Iraqi government had yielded various draft agreements, including on these two points: U.S. troops in Iraq would withdraw from populated areas by June 30, 2009, and they would withdraw from the whole country by Dec. 31, 2011.

The negotiations were forced because the United Nations mandate allowing U.S. troops to operate in Iraq expires at the end of this year. A final agreement between the United States and Iraq is necessary for our forces to legally remain in the country past Dec. 31.

Given this leverage, the Iraqi government insisted on a timetable for U.S. forces to leave.

Bush administration negotiators are saving face by saying conditions on the ground have improved enough for a timetable. They credit the 2007 “surge” as having brought this about.

Left unsaid, of course, is that the Bush administration’s decision to send a woefully insufficient force to begin with, along with its early decision to disband the Iraqi army, was largely responsible for the horrific violence of the war’s first four years, leaving no real choice other than a belated surge.

We hope the next administration will not feel obligated to keep our troops in Iraq through 2011. Last month the U.S. commander in charge of training Iraqi troops said they would be fully combat ready by next year, perhaps by April. If that becomes the case, we should withdraw much sooner.