Palm Beach Post: Sham Iraq constitution will not 'honor sacrifice'

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2005/08/25/a18a_iraq_edit_0825.html

As more Americans wonder whether Cindy Sheehan is correct that the best way out of Iraq is to leave, President Bush reiterates, as he did in his most recent radio address, that the country "must finish the task that our troops have given their lives for and honor their sacrifice by completing their mission."

The president's problem, strategically and politically, is that "their mission" has changed again and again. In fact, their original mission — to keep Iraq from using its stockpiled weapons of mass destruction — was "completed" by default. The president's first fallback, which he continues to hide behind, was that the Iraq invasion was a necessary response to 9/11. Wrong again. In fact, his invasion has turned Iraq into a recruiting and training ground for terrorists.

The last-resort mission President Bush has declared is "advancing the cause of liberty in a troubled region." But to have any chance of accomplishing that restated mission, Iraq's constitution — twice postponed — must embody the ideals the Bush administration has been advocating. The draft hastily submitted Monday and facing a new deadline today does not do so, regardless of the administration's claims to the contrary.

Women need bedrock equal rights in matters of marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody. This constitution doesn't grant that; in many cases, clerics would make the decisions. Promises to protect women in a later "bill of rights" can't be trusted. If the Bush administration uses passage of an incomplete constitution as an excuse to withdraw before next year's congressional elections, the promised women's rights probably never will be provided and other flaws probably never will be fixed. Hardly a way to "honor their sacrifice."