An Iraq Timetable: It’s About Time (7 Letters) written to the NY Times that should be printed and distributed to every member of Congress:

To the Editor: Re “Democrats Back Date for Start of Iraq Pullout” (front page, April 24): President Bush argues: “An artificial timetable of withdrawal would say to an enemy, ‘Just wait them out.’ It would say to the Iraqis, ‘Don’t do hard things necessary to achieve our objectives,’ and it would be discouraging for our troops.” The reality is just the opposite. The American occupation itself means that the Iraqis — both the warring groups and the government — can procrastinate all they like. American troops become both the targets of all and the excuse for doing nothing. The only thing that will thoroughly concentrate Iraqi minds on confronting the challenges of a postwar Iraq is to put those challenges right in their face through a pullout timetable. Philip G. Cerny Newark, April 24, 2007. The writer is a professor of global affairs at Rutgers University-Newark.

•To the Editor: Thankfully, the Democrats will vote to bring the troops home from Iraq, but they will face a presidential veto. The only way a veto can be overridden is for some Republicans to join the Democrats. If Republicans cannot listen to their own hearts for guidance in this matter, then perhaps they should listen to American voters. Christopher Woods Chappell Hill, Tex., April 24, 2007

• To the Editor: Regarding the looming showdown over Iraq spending and timetables for withdrawal, Congress and the public should demand that the president offer up his own strategy for pressing the Iraqi government to achieve the political milestones that have been on the table for so many months. Everyone seems to agree that the Iraqi leadership must take political actions to promote reconciliation, but the deadlines in the Congressional spending bill offer the only concrete approach to pressing the Maliki government to take such actions. If the president rejects this approach and declines to propose an alternative, it will be clear that he is the one failing to support our troops. Barry Finkelstein Portsmouth, N.H., April 24, 2007

• To the Editor: Last September, President Bush announced a last-ditch plan to pacify Baghdad: build trenches around the city. “They’re building a berm around the city to make it harder for people to come in with explosive devices,” he said. But this insane plan to encircle a metropolis of five million people with a medieval moat was rejected by the Iraqis. The most recent plan to engineer the city into submission was to build a wall separating Sunnis from Shiites. But the Iraqis don’t want to live with apartheid-like divisions, and that plan has just been scrapped (“Iraqi Premier Orders Work Stopped on Wall,” news article, April 23). Rather than invent another civil engineering fantasy, it’s time for real solutions to the violence in Iraq: the American troops must withdraw, and Iraqis, with the help of the international community, must begin a process of reconciliation. Medea Benjamin, San Francisco, April 23, 2007 The writer is a co-founder of Global Exchange and Code Pink.

• To the Editor:While Senator Harry Reid’s comment that “this war is lost” has caused a spirited debate, I prefer to focus on his other comment that there is no military solution to Iraq’s problems. Our military and others secured a military victory in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was removed from power. The United States military is not trained for nation-building. While our troops are the best in the world when it comes to military intervention and domination, our troops are not diplomats. We must let the Iraqis build their own nation. It’s time to get our troops out of Iraq. Alan Rivers Carmel, Ind., April 24, 2007

•To the Editor: When Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and connections to 9/11 failed to materialize, his torture chambers became one of the Bush administration’s justifications for its urgent need to overthrow him. If some future American “success” in Iraq leaves in place an Iraqi security force that uses torture (“3 Suspects Talk After Iraqi Soldiers Do Dirty Work,” front page, April 22), what will have been accomplished with the loss of more than 3,300 American lives and unknown thousands of Iraqi lives? Richard Khanlian Santa Fe, N.M., April 22, 2007

• To the Editor: Re “Iraq’s Desperate Exodus” (editorial, April 22): Having triggered the causes behind the tragic refugee crisis in Iraq, the United States is under a profound moral duty to provide sanctuary for those thousands of Iraqis at risk for aligning with the American forces. To facilitate evacuation on any meaningful scale, however, would imply recognition that our now-stated objectives of bringing stability and democratic governance to Iraq are no longer achievable — a reality glaringly evident to all but the Bush administration. Richard Boyce, San Francisco, April 23, 2007