“That this House, while paying tribute to the heroism and endurance of the Armed Forces…in circumstances of exceptional difficulty, has no confidence in the central direction of the war.”

While these words sound like something Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats may have just voted for in the House of Representatives against President Bush’s conduct of the Iraq War, they were actually offered in the British House of Commons as a motion to censure Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II. By the summer of 1942, public opinion polls showed half of Britons did not approve of his conduct of the war. Further evidence of public dissatisfaction came from special elections to fill individual seats in Parliament (there was no general election during the war), where those supporting Churchill’s government lost badly.

It’s astonishing now to think that one of the great figures of the 20th Century could find himself in such a position. In 1940, he gave the Brits their backbone and their bark as they stood alone against Hitler with the survival of their nation at stake. France had fallen and the British Army had been forced to evacuate from continental Europe in June. Many in the government and the military advised Churchill that it was time to find out what Hitler’s peace terms might be. Churchill’s answer to them and announced in a speech to the world was “we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets; we shall never surrender…”

Britain made its stand in the summer and fall of 1940. They won the air war against Germany over Great Britain and forced Hitler to postpone any invasion plans indefinitely. The bombings which killed thousands in London and other major British cities subsided at least for the moment, and the United States and the Soviet Union joined the fight against Nazi Germany in 1941. Life returned to a degree of normalcy, but there was still a war to be won and victory did not appear any closer. Churchill had presided over several stunning defeats. After three years of fighting, besides defending the home front, there was little to show for all the life and treasure spent.

Strategically, Churchill had chosen the Middle East as the place the British would conduct their first counterattack against the Axis powers. He recognized how vital its oil supplies were to both sides’ war efforts. Some thought this was peripheral to defeating Hitler in Europe, but went along with the plan. After some initial early successes securing Egypt and the lands across North Africa to Libya, the Germans sent in a large contingent under its famous General Erwin Rommel (the Desert Fox) in the spring of 1942. His forces, though significantly smaller in numbers, kicked the British Army all the way back across North Africa on a four hundred mile retreat. He capped the drive beating the British at the Battle of Tobruk killing, injuring or capturing 50,000 British troops. The Nazi Army stood poised to take Cairo and the Suez Canal thus cutting off oil supplies.

This defeat in North Africa coupled with equally shocking losses that spring in the Far East against the Japanese (including the fall of a garrison of over 70,000 soldiers in Singapore to a force half its size), made some believe Churchill needed to be stripped of some or all his responsibilities for the conduct of the war. One MP, a former Secretary of War, argued that Churchill said they would win in Singapore, and they didn’t, and that they had “smashed” the German Army in Libya, but the opposite was true. How was his word to be trusted now? Another of Churchill’s fiercest critics, left wing Labour MP Aneurin Bevan rose and said, “the Government has conceived the war wrongly from the start, and no one has misconceived it more than the Prime Minister himself.”

After two days of both sides arguing their case back and forth, Churchill rose to speak to a packed chamber in defense of his Government. “This long debate has now reached its final stage.” He next noted what a remarkable example of freedom in time of war, but perhaps, as he would go on to argue, it was not freedom well used. “Everything that could be thought of or raked up has been used to weaken confidence in the Government, has been used to prove that Ministers are incompetent …to make the Army distrust the backing its getting from the civil power…and then to undermine [the Prime Minister] in his own heart, and, if possible, before the eyes of the nation…All this is poured out by cable and radio to all parts of the earth to the distress of all our friends and the delight of all our foes!…But the story must not end there, and I make now my appeal to the House of Commons to make sure it does not end there.”

First, he acknowledged the defeats and how painful they were to him too, and as head of the government he was responsible. “Men may make mistakes and learn from their mistakes” and the tide in war can change quickly. The generals on the ground “need a chance, and more than one chance.” The civil government’s role, as he saw it, was to provide the military the means to succeed and be a stabilizing force not an instrument to dishearten the public and feed propaganda to their enemies. He said that the government must be a “bulkhead” between the military and public criticism. Only then would generals and those serving in other executive positions be willing to take risks, without always having to look over their shoulder. Regarding his authority, the Prime Minister said the House cannot “ask me to bear the responsibilities without the power of executive action…” Churchill urged the members to defeat the motion in a convincing fashion in order to send a message to the world that Britain was not faltering.

The parallels to the current debate in Congress regarding the Iraq War are evident. The immediate sense of threat and danger following 9-11 has passed. The President enjoyed the solidarity of the country then, but now has many questioning the “direction of the war.” Some saw invading Iraq as peripheral to fighting Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, while President Bush set out to do both, believing transformation of the Middle East was vital in the long term. Like Churchill, he now faces a vote in the legislature pushed by the left wing that would strip him of some or all his authority to fight the war in Iraq, establishing a date certain for withdrawal along with other restrictions. While it’s true George Bush is no Winston Churchill, he does not have to answer for the dramatic defeats either. The United States military and the Allies successfully overthrew Saddam’s regime. Iraq now has a newly elected democratic government. The challenge of course has been securing the peace. Despite the successes, the criticisms leveled against President Bush are every bit as virulent as those brought against Churchill in 1942 with words like “incompetent” and "ill-conceived plan" readily coming out of Democratic leaders’ mouths. Nancy Pelosi echoed the words of MP Bevan above and the motion brought against Churchill saying, “The American people have lost faith in the president’s conduct of the war. The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not.”

It’s worth noting at this point that while Pelosi’s House bill to strip the President of some of his authority passed by the slim margin of 218-212, the motion to censure Churchill was defeated 475 to 25. Pelosi's bill now faces a presidential veto which is unlikely to be overridden, so the President will like Churchill retain the ability to govern the war. The Prime Minister after surviving the censure vote did not cower, but instead ordered reinforcements to the theater and appointed General Bernard Montgomery to lead a new offensive against Rommel. Montgomery defeated the Desert Fox in stunning fashion at El Alamein near Cairo and pushed the German forces back across North Africa. The Americans later came from the other direction, and together the Allies destroyed or captured the remaining German forces in Africa. The Middle East was secure.

President Bush, following in Churchill’s footsteps, will likely continue his troop surge and has appointed a new commander, General David Petreaus, to lead the effort. Bush plans to give him “a chance,” and probably “more than one chance,” without timelines that would almost certainly doom the mission, and without Petreaus having to look over his shoulder all the time.