The Fog of a Long War

The Iraq civil war now comes to the floor of the Senate as 99 men and women rise to debate resolutions that have no more authority and much less style than does a teddy bear in a car seat.

Senators from both sides of the aisle are already making remarks that, from the melodrama of the rhetoric, point to their powerlessness. "This is a ping-pong game with American lives," declares Senator Hagel. "It is a targeted civil war," opines Senator Dodd. "The Congress was never meant to be a rubber stamp," asserts Senator Boxer. "It's the failed policy of this president," measures Senator Biden. "This is the last chance for the Iraqis to step up," warns Senator McConnell.

The president and vice president have responded dutifully that, sworn to defend the Constitution with the power of commander in chief, they do not heed the posturing of scolds and Potomac fever victims. Mr. Cheney also advises that the impatient Senate settle in for an epochal contest in Iraq. "It's a problem that I think will occupy our successors, maybe for two or three or four administrations."

America has suffered this scale of "problem" before, when the Congress and the presidency clashed over the conduct of our Civil War, and America found a way forward that suited the Constitution's separation of powers. A guide for the Iraq war between the sects may be the American war between the states.

In December 1861, the radical abolitionist Senator Chandler of Michigan joined Senator Wade of Ohio to create the Joint Committee for the Conduct of the War. This was not cheerleading. The committee was known as the "Jacobin Club" for its bloodthirstiness. Knocked as amateurish and cruel, the committee was armed with the power of subpoena to order anyone to attend secret hearings. Testimony of those who appeared before it was usefully leaked in order to intimidate critics.

The committee included gifted hotheads such as Reps. John Covode of Pennsylvania and George Julian of Indiana, who competed in denouncing West Point as disloyal, the general staff as criminal, Lincoln's Cabinet as spineless, and the Democratic Party as Judas. It longed for a showdown like Waterloo, which proved its ignorance of weapons and terrain. It broke more commanding generals than Lee did, accusing George McClellan of "cowardice" after the failure at Antietam and faulting George Meade, the man who held on at Gettsyburg, for not bagging the whole of Lee's army. It routinely undermined Lincoln's sincere appeals to Democrats and Southerners and regarded the president's election strategy of a Union Party in 1864 as "conciliating rebels."

Hardheaded as it was, the Joint Committee did serve the critical role of a grand jury with the power of establishing facts before the bar of history. Reading the proceedings today is like watching C-Span, and the documents provide tempting analogies with the quandary of the Iraq civil war. In 1862, the committee exposed a bird-brained catch-and-release policy toward the captured "secessionists" along the Rappahannock.

In 1864, the committee held timely hearings with survivors of the Fort Pillow Massacre along the Mississippi and established that the execrable Nathan Bedford Forrest had vouchsafed the slaughter of surrendered black Union soldiers — a crime that presaged by 10 decades the lynchings by descendants of the killers — the Klan. In 1865, the committee was most helpful to General Grant to provide the testimony of principals in the botched assault on Fort Fisher, N.C., in order to make it easier to remove the commander to blame, the rascal politico General Benjamin Butler.

The Congress has in its hands today the power to establish a Joint Committee for the Conduct of the War on Terror. Naming members from the myriad factions would be logical and avoiding presidential candidates would be rational. The White House is guaranteed not to like it because of its secrecy and subpoena power. Congressional leaders are guaranteed not to like it because of its secrecy and the radioactive power of the leak. The president, the Defense Department, and the director of national intelligence would learn to use it as Lincoln and his Cabinet once did their own, as a guard dog on good days, a straw dog on bad days, and a junkyard dog on the day Tehran crosses the Rubicon.

That Congress does not call upon its own tradition to share the burden in the fog of a long war is no judgment. It does suggest that our republic is not up to the moral wit of Abraham Lincoln as to the value of a war fought by many minds and strengths acting in coordination: "As we say out West, if a man can't skin he must hold a leg while somebody else does."

Mr. Batchelor is host of "The John Batchelor Show," now on hiatus.