A Front-Line Cure for Frivolous Wars
by James Norton

776 US troops were wounded in action in Iraq last month. That's the highest number since the assault on Fallujah in November 2004, according to the Washington Post and Defense Department data. As the war goes from hot to hotter many Americans are asking: "How do we get out?"

But there's another question worth considering: "How do we prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again?"

Authoritative books from Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" to Rajiv Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" to "Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks have revealed that the path to war in Iraq was paved with garbage. The drive to invade was powered by cherry-picked intelligence, a carefully crafted PR campaign, and willful denial about dangers of invading and occupying a fragile and explosively volatile country.

Those who supported the official storyline (a nexus of WMD and the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection) were rewarded; those who asked tough questions or suggested a difficult occupation requiring many more US troops were silenced or drummed out of their jobs.

In short, there was a complete lack of accountability — to either the long-term interests of the American people, or anything resembling objective facts — before, during and after the push to war.

But can accountability in war be legislated?

Absolutely. Let's pass something called the War Accountability Act of 2006.

The law would be simple. It would stipulate that after 90 consecutive days of overseas hostilities involving 50,000 or more US troops, the American government would be compelled to shift to a real war footing.

The president (our "the commander in chief," right?) would be required to spend 45 out of every 90 days of hostilities working alongside American troops in the occupied country.

The Oval Office, for all intents and purposes, would be moved overseas — at this point, probably to Baghdad's Green Zone. The president can do his vital work far from the comforts of the Beltway. He'd be half a world away from his family and political supporters, surrounded by military bodyguards, amid the intermittent thumps of mortar-fire and exploding car bombs.

The Speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader would be similarly compelled to spend half their working days on the front lines.

Failure to do so would result in removal from office.

Some would say that this would put the country's leadership in real physical danger. That is precisely the point. Anyone who's ever been in mortal danger can testify to the fact that physical danger concentrates the mind somethin' powerful. On the eve of the Iraq war, according to former ambassador Peter Galbraith's book "The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End," President Bush didn't know the difference between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Would he have had done his homework had he known that Iraq was going to be his new home until US troops won the fight or left the country?

Quite possibly, yes.

Kings and dictators get to casually wave their hands and send waves of functionaries and ordinary people to their deaths. In a republic, by contrast, leaders share risks with their fellow citizens. Moreover, we have a plan of succession; America doesn't stop with the death of the president. Like the republican Romans who regularly lost Consuls and Senators on the front lines, Americans know that their country doesn't end when their leaders die or resign; it ends with the dismemberment of the Constitution.

George Washington and his fellow revolutionaries put their lives on the line to create a better place to live for their children and grandchildren; they fought the Revolutionary War because of a cause worth dying for, not a cause worth sacrificing others for from the comfort of somewhere warm and cozy.

If our government can ask our citizens to risk their lives on the front lines for a war that may or may not be responsibly planned and in their nation's best interest, can't our citizens ask our leaders to do the same in return?

James Norton is the author of "Saving General Washington: The Right Wing Assault on America's Founding Principles."

E-mail James Norton at jim@flakmag.com.