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Politics

Democrats push toward Bush rebuke

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published February 14, 2007

WASHINGTON - Democrats relentlessly assailed President Bush's policy in Iraq on Tuesday as the House plunged into momentous debate on a war that has lost public support and cost more than 3,100 U.S. troops their lives.

"No more blank checks," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"This battle is the most visible part of a global war" against terrorists, countered the Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner, hoping to limit GOP defections on what loomed as a potential wartime rebuke to the commander in chief. "If we leave, they will follow us home. It's that simple."

The Democratic leadership set aside most of the week for the debate, expected to culminate in a vote on Friday on a bare-bones, nonbinding resolution that "disapproves of the decision of President Bush ... to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq."

The 95-word measure adds that "Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States armed forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq."

The debate was Congress' first on Iraq since Democrats gained control of the House and Senate in midterm elections shadowed by voter opposition to the war. Decorum carried the day in the chamber - where catcalls are part of near-daily discourse - as Democrats and Republicans took their five-minute speaking turns across the hours.

"At the end of the debate, we will vote on a straightforward proposition: whether we support the president's plan or oppose it," Pelosi said. "That vote will signal whether the House has heard the message the American people have sent about this war. The current policies have not worked, will not work and must be changed."

Passage was a virtual certainty. Democratic leaders said they expected no more than one or two members of their rank-and-file to oppose the resolution. Republicans said that despite quiet lobbying by the White House, they expected at least two dozen GOP lawmakers to swing behind the measure, suggesting that it would command the votes of at least 250 or 260 votes in the 435-member House.

Across the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said he would attempt to pass an identical measure later this month. Republicans blocked debate on a different proposal critical of the troop increase earlier this winter, after Democrats refused to give equal treatment to a GOP-backed alternative.

Democrats made clear the nonbinding measure was the beginning of a longer campaign to bring the war to an end.

"In a few weeks, the war in Iraq will enter its fifth year, causing thousands of deaths, tens of thousands of casualties, costing hundreds of billions of dollars and damaging the standing of the United States in the international community. And there is no end in sight," Pelosi said.

Boehner followed her to the well of the House seconds later, the first Republican to speak.

"There is no question that the war in Iraq has been difficult. All Americans are frustrated we haven't seen more success more quickly," he said. But he called the Iraq war the latest in a string of crucial conflicts dating to the founding of the nation.

"Every drop of blood that has been spilt in defense of freedom and liberty - from the American Revolution to this very moment - is for nothing if we are unwilling to stand against this threat," he said.

Additionally, ambassadors from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Qatar met with lawmakers during the day and warned them of the consequences of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., said one ambassador compared the U.S. involvement in Iraq to open-heart surgery - requiring the surgeon to stay until the job was finished.

Democrats, of course, cast the war in different terms.

"The administration's policy on Iraq has failed. It failed yesterday, it's failing today, and it will fail tomorrow," said Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont. "These failures have left America weakened, not strengthened."

Republicans, however, said victory in Iraq must be the goal.

"As in the Cold War, our current struggle is one of survival," Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said in floor debate. "The enemy does not mean merely to chase us away. The goal of the Islamist extremist radicals is to destroy us. If we run, they will pursue. If we cower, they will strike."

[Last modified February 14, 2007, 05:34:09]