Listen Up, Mr. PresidentIs Congress using the Iraq bills to send a message?

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But there's a slight loophole in even this provision. The bill allows Bush to keep in Iraq not only troops that perform those three allowed missions but also troops "that are essential for" the purposes of those missions. It would be a stretch to claim that, say, maintaining the counterinsurgency surge is "essential" to train Iraqis or to defeat al-Qaida; but if Bush were somehow forced to swallow this bill, he could make the argument that all the troops were "essential" for the more modest missions and dare Congress to disagree. It's a less loopy claim than some of Alberto Gonzales' parsings of the Constitution.

Still, the essence of the Senate bill is this: Lower America's profile, scale back its mission, turn the bulk of the fighting over to the Iraqis, and get most of our own troops out by March 2008 or thereabouts—period.

The House bill is a bit subtler and at least attempts to link the U.S. military commitment to Iraq's political stability. It lays out specific benchmarks that the Iraqi government needs to meet—the same sort of benchmarks that President Bush himself has listed in the past.

By July 1, 2007, Bush must tell Congress whether the Iraqis have met some of these benchmarks (for instance, whether they've made "substantial progress" in deploying security forces to Baghdad, disarming militias, and eradicating terrorist safe havens).

By Oct. 1, he must report on whether the Iraqis have met further benchmarks (enacted an oil-revenue law, scheduled provincial and local elections, reformed de-Baathification laws, amended the constitution, and begun spending the $10 billion in Iraqi revenue for reconstruction projects).

If Bush reports that the Iraqis have not met these benchmarks, or if he doesn't issue a report at all, then the secretary of defense "shall commence" the redeployment immediately and complete it within 180 days—in other words, by March 30, 2008, the same date as in the Senate bill, except this is a deadline, not a "goal."

However, if Bush reports that the Iraqis have met their benchmarks, then the redeployment doesn't need to begin until March 1, 2008, and has another 180 days—the end of August 2008—to finish.

In other words, if there's insufficient political progress by this fall, we start pulling out right away. If there's lots of political progress, we stay till the following spring, then start pulling out.

(As with the Senate's version, the House bill lets troops stay indefinitely in Iraq for certain purposes: protecting U.S. citizens, going after members of "terrorist organizations with global reach," and training the Iraqi security forces.)

One could argue that the House bill's distinguishing features—specifying benchmarks and holding out the lure of a six-month extension of the current U.S. troop presence if the Iraqis meet them—are a tease and a ruse. If Iraqi officials can't disarm the militias or reconcile factions now, an extra six months—followed by a withdrawal—isn't likely to do the trick. Or if the extension is seen as an incentive, a reward for good governance, doesn't that suggest that the Iraqis want us to stay? If they meet the benchmarks by October, might that mean the surge is working? If so, should the withdrawal proceed? Maybe the success warrants a reassessment.

All this is moot, of course, since Bush almost certainly will veto this bill, and the Democrats don't have anywhere near the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto.

So, what's the point of these bills? Is it to put the Democratic Congress on record as favoring a (sort of) withdrawal? Is it a ploy to force Bush and the Republicans to endorse an unpopular war one more time and thus bury themselves in a still deeper hole?

Yes, probably, to some degree.

But the House bill can also be read as a road map that Bush might fruitfully follow. Bush has laid out benchmarks that the Iraqi government must meet; they're pretty much the same as those laid out in the House bill. But Bush didn't attach any penalties if the Iraqis didn't meet them—or any rewards if they did. Without any incentives, the Iraqis will be inclined to take the easiest path—and do nothing that requires extraordinary measures or risks.

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Fred Kaplan is Slate's "War Stories" correspondent and author of 1959: The Year Everything Changed. He can be reached through his Web site, http://1959thebook.com.

Illustration by Robert Neubecker.

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