The War in Washington

By Elizabeth Drew

On no other issue has the Democratic takeover of Congress in January—presenting President Bush with an opposition Congress for the first time in his presidency—been more dramatic than on the Iraq war. Under the Republicans, Congress undoubtedly would not have taken the steps it has toward forcing a drawdown of US forces from Iraq—which a majority of members in both parties favor, no matter what they say publicly. Though both the House and the Senate took important steps in late March toward pressing the President to wind down the war, politicians in both parties are struggling to catch up with both the public's increasingly negative opinion of the war and the facts about what's actually happening in Iraq.