Rhetoric over the past year or more about a 'timetable' for withdrawing from Iraq conforms to rhetoric back in 2002 and 2003 about 'disarming' Saddam Hussein. That word 'disarm' was fiendishly clever rhetoric. It was fiendishly effective circular argument, concealing the real question -- whether Saddam actually had weapons of mass destruction -- by begging the question. It re-worded the administration objective -- to invade a sovereign nation that had not attacked us -- making the objective sound constructive, even peaceable. It concealed the true target, Iraq, by making Saddam Hussein sound like the target, or more peaceably yet, by making his weapons seem like the target.

Now we have exactly the same people and their go-alongs using the word 'timetable' in exactly analogous ways. They purportedly object to a 'timetable' for withdrawing from Iraq, when what they really object to is withdrawing.

Criticizing these people for 'not having an exit strategy' is at best a waste of breath, or ink. They didn't have an exit plan, because they didn't -- and still don't -- plan to exit.

We don't need a public 'timetable' for withdrawing from Iraq. Publishing a timetable is, put simply, publishing troop movements in wartime, which is one of the few valid exceptions to the First Amendment's protections of freedom of expression. We need to get the troops out as soon as possible, with all effective speed, starting immediately. We cannot wait until after the 2008 election, because even a Democratic winner of that election might be pressured into pulling a Nixon -- staying in even after winning the election by quasi-promising to pull out. We cannot wait until after this fall, because there is no reason to believe that this season will produce demonstrable improvements, and our people will be injured and worse in the meantime. We cannot wait until next spring, and another reassessment by Gen. David Petraeus, for the same reasons.

Obviously, removing 180,000 troops and civilian contractors employed on militaristic jobs in Iraq will take time. One of the few points of wide consensus in discussion of the Iraq war is that a strategic withdrawal is complicated. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) has said repeatedly that it will take a year. The reasonable inference is that we have to get started.

We need not and cannot ballyhoo the withdrawal too much initially, nor can we detail it explicitly for the world at every stage: troop movements in wartime are by deep tradition in America not announced. Republicans who accuse a bunch of stodgy Dems in Congress of insisting on a 'timetable' are accusing the Dems of advocating the publication of troop movements in wartime.

But we will withdraw from Iraq, since even the most bloodthirsty neocons, the degenerate commentators willing to get on television and trumpet their indifference to Muslim deaths to the world -- further inflaming world opinion and terrorist strikes -- do not assert that we will stay there forever. The only question is when.

Obviously the Bush administration is playing for time -- for as much time as possible. Commentators who theorize that GWBush wants to prolong the war until the end of his term underestimate him; it is much more probable that he wants the U.S. in Iraq for as long as Iraq's oil reserves last -- close to another 30 years. That's what the 'global war on terror' signifies; after all, administration spokesmen HAVE been willing publicly to estimate a timetable for the war on terror, if you notice, and typically they peg it to 'a generation' (c. 30 years).

Taking a leaf from Osama bin Laden's book, the administration scheduled appearances by Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker as close to 9/11 as possible -- with 'testimony' by both, not under oath, before House committees on Monday, September 10, and Senate committees on Tuesday, September 11. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), a presidential candidate, had the best comment on the timing: "I don't think we should have had this discussion on 9/11 or 9/10 or 9/12," Obama told Petraeus and Crocker, because the timing reinforces the misperception that Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

Obama went on to point out, temperately, that "If the American people had understood," back when the Iraq war was being boosted by the White House in 2002-2003, that we would still be in Iraq more than four years later, presiding over a destroyed infrastructure and sectarian violence -- "If that had been the deal, I think most people would have said that's not a good deal."

The arithmetic here is that this administration is embedding the U.S. in Iraq for a generation, unless and until the citizens of this country stop it. Calling for a 'timetable' is beside the point. We have to call for complete and total withdrawal, starting now. The people to set the timetable are the people coordinating the troop movements. Democrats in Congress, and the few Republicans opposing the war, have to keep their eye on the ball. It's the withdrawal, stupid.

A timetable is no more a substitute for withdrawal than 'job training' is a substitute for lost jobs, or health 'insurance' a substitute for health care. Rhetoric about the timetable is too much like the administration's bogus focus on 'voter fraud' when it should have focused, in the public interest, on election fraud. Don't be fooled.