Reichert's congressional challenger Burner announces Iraq plan

Ending the war in Iraq calls for diplomatic and economic approaches instead of a military solution, Eastsider Darcy Burner said Monday in leading a group of fellow Democratic congressional challengers announcing a peace plan.

The plan, released at the progressive Take Back America conference in Washington, D.C., incorporates many pending legislative proposals and several recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, the commission named by Congress in 2006 and headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton.

"What's really new about this particular effort is pulling it all together," Burner said from Washington after the conference announcement. She also cited the plan's recommendations for repairing the institutional breakdowns that allowed mistakes to occur, and its potential for enlisting the support of more congressional candidates, current members of Congress and citizen activists.

Burner is running again this year against Republican Rep. Dave Reichert, who defeated her in 2006 to win a second term in his 8th District in eastern King and Pierce counties. A critic of Reichert's position on Iraq, she said the plan was put together after she realized she did not have a "really good answer" when voters asked her how she would deal with the issue.

For help with the plan, Burner tapped retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military in 2003-04.

She also drew in nine other Democratic candidates to sign on to the proposal.

The plan calls for an immediate drawdown on U.S. troops in Iraq until none is left. The timing must be worked out with military commanders to ensure the troops' safety and coordinated with increased economic assistance "and executed in such a way as to contain the threat of terrorism and prevent an abrupt destabilization of the region," the plan states.

"There is no military solution to the problem in Iraq," Burner said. "If we want to deal with the issues that we are facing, what we have to do is engage the other types of power that we have at our disposal: We have to engage diplomatically, we have to engage politically, we have to engage economically."

The plan calls for substantial U.S. investment in Iraq, not to enrich U.S. corporations but to rebuild Iraq's economy and society.

The plan also seeks to reverse what Burner calls the erosion of the U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances, which she said has been abused by such practices as warrantless wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus and use of presidential signing statements to alter legislation.

The proposal also blames the media for failing to provide adequate warnings about the downside of invading Iraq and calls for measures to stymie media consolidation.

Reichert aide Mike Shields said, "I think both sides would agree we have the same plan: We want our troops home as soon as possible."

But Reichert "wants them to withdraw based on the situation on the ground," Shields said. "This plan wants them to withdraw based on the domestic political situation in the United States."

Reichert opposes committing to an immediate drawdown of U.S. troops, Shields said. And Reichert also is against massive U.S. spending in Iraq, an oil-rich country that has plenty of resources of its own, he said.

But Reichert agrees that diplomacy should be explored more widely, Shields said. Not only that, Reichert has actively supported many of the legislative measures touted in the plan and favored a bill to adopt all of the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton commission, Shields said.