'Iraq effect' shapes race for Congress

By James Coomarasamy
BBC News, Washington

Recent news from Iraq has been particularly bleak

Staying the course versus surrendering to the terrorists. That - in a nutshell - is how the Republican leadership had been hoping to frame the debate about Iraq in this mid-term election campaign.

During a speech in New Hampshire in June, the chief White House strategist, Karl Rove, described the choice facing Americans in these terms.

"They may be with you for the first shots," he said of the Democratic Party, "but they're not going to be with you for the tough battles."

And last week, President George W Bush referred, in unusually stark terms, to the Democrats as the "party of cut and run" - not long after he had made a series of speeches on the war on terror, which had briefly given a boost to his ratings.

Bleak news

National security has traditionally been the Republican party's strong point; helping it to victories in the last two election cycles. So will it have the same effect again?

There are about 147,000 US soldiers deployed in Iraq

Or will public frustration with progress in Iraq outweigh the slight advantage that the Republicans still enjoy on the issue of fighting terrorism?

The odds, at this stage do not appear to favour the party in power. For a start, the recent news from Iraq has been particularly bleak.

On the military front, 13 US soldiers died last week, while over the past month at least 776 American troops were wounded - the highest monthly total for two years.

October's figures could be even worse.

On the political front, meanwhile, there seems little cause for optimism.

During her recent trip to Baghdad, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brought a message of frustration with the efforts of the Maliki government to control inter-ethnic conflict.

The Foley scandal fallout is still dominating the airwaves; pushing other issues - including those of war and peace - out of the spotlight

And then, on the same day - although somewhat obscured by the Mark Foley furore - came the stark words of Republican Senator John Warner, the respected head of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Fresh from his own trip to Iraq, he described the country as "drifting sideways" and gave the government there two to three months before Washington should - as he put it - "think about a change of course".

It was a statement which seemed to catch the White House unawares - and which has since been given the backing of former Secretary of State James Baker, the Republican grandee given the task, by President Bush, of reviewing the administration's Iraq strategy.

At a White House news conference on Wednesday, President Bush responded to the observations of the two senior Republicans.

"I don't hear those people saying "get out before the job is done'", he said, adding that the US military was already adjusting its tactics as the situation on the ground demanded.

But perhaps even more damaging was the leak, last month, of the US spy agencies' collective take on Iraq; the National Intelligence Estimate or NIE.

It stated that the country had become a "cause celebre" for jihadists and noted that the conflict there was increasing the threats to US interests - both abroad and at home.

And that conclusion is, of course, a direct threat to the argument for remaining in Iraq, which resonates loudest across the United States - that it is better to fight the terrorists over there than to fight them here.

Scandal drowns out Iraq

Conversely, the Republican Party can point to the absence of any major terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11 and to the other conclusion of the NIE; that an American defeat in Iraq would only embolden the terrorists.

Expect to hear more about the Democrats' failure to reach a unified position on the issue - one of the most important factors, it would seem, in helping the Republicans keep their advantage on national security.

Although, in what is, essentially, a series of local races, the question of party unity will be less important than it would be in a presidential campaign.

Yet - for the moment - Republicans are finding it difficult to make their case heard.

And not just on Iraq. The Foley scandal fallout is still dominating the airwaves; pushing other issues - including those of war and peace - out of the spotlight.

Even the one Iraq war veteran running for the Republican Party in November's congressional race does not include the fight against terrorism among the five main issues he lists, which differentiate him from his Democratic opponent.

Events on the ground could change the momentum, but - for the moment - there is little doubt that that Republicans are feeling less secure than usual about running as the party of national security.