House sends message on Iraq

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives voted Friday to oppose a troop buildup in Iraq, the first time since the war began nearly four years ago that Congress has gone on record against President Bush’s policy.

Seizing that momentum, Senate Democratic leaders are delaying their weeklong recess to hold a vote this afternoon on whether to consider the House’s plan. They’ll try to pressure enough Senate Republicans up for re-election next year to join them and allow the debate to begin – or they’ll blast those Republicans as supporting the escalation of an unpopular war.

While the House’s 246 to 182 vote on a nonbinding resolution carries no force of law, its political symbolism gives it some historic significance. Congress has rarely objected to a president’s military strategy once combat is under way.

After enjoying great deference in the conduct of national security for his first six years in office, Bush now faces an assertive opposition Congress that has left him on the defensive. The nonbinding resolution, passed on a largely party-line vote, seems certain to be the first of a series of actions that will challenge Bush for the remainder of his presidency.

At stake is not just Bush’s decision to send an additional 21,500 U.S. troops to Iraq, the plan specifically renounced by the resolution. By extension, the House vote passed judgment on Bush’s overall stewardship of the war in Iraq and, more broadly, of his leadership in the world. At a time when the president is confronting Iran over its nuclear enrichment program, the House vote demonstrates that he has far less latitude to take aggressive action than he might have had in the past.

“This is an important moment,” said Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser and is now a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And it’s an important moment not only about what’s in the past, or even in the present, but also what might be happening in the future.”

The resolution, he said, “tells the president that the country’s increasingly tired of the war and the country’s reaction to his provoking a new war would be even worse.”

Seventeen Republicans voted for the resolution – about half what Democrats had hoped for – while two Democrats from conservative districts voted against it: Reps. Gene Taylor of Mississippi and Jim Marshall of Georgia.

Getting binding anti-war legislation through the Senate, where Democrats hold only a 51-49 majority, and past Bush’s veto will be difficult, if not impossible.

Republican congressional leaders said that retreating from Baghdad would lead to chaos in the Middle East and embolden terrorists.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, “The passage of this legislation will signal a change in direction in Iraq that will end the fighting and bring our troops home.”

She steered clear of endorsing any specific plans to condition funding or limit troop deployments, but said she wanted redeployment to begin within six months. She added, “We want our troops to have the training and equipment they need when they go into war.”

Bush has vowed to proceed with his 21,500-troop buildup anyway.

White House spokesman Tony Snow downplayed the significance of the House vote and warned against stronger action to restrict or cut off war funding.

“Soon, Congress will have the opportunity to show its support for the troops in Iraq by funding the supplemental appropriations request the president has submitted, and which our men and women in combat are counting on,” he said in a prepared statement. “The president believes that the Congress should provide the full funding and flexibility our armed forces need to succeed in their mission to protect our country.”

As the House prepared to deliver its symbolic rebuke, Bush insisted that his latest plan for Iraq is already paying off. He held a 45-minute videoconference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday morning, then told reporters that Iraq is living up to its commitments to provide more security forces and to stop sectarian interference in security matters. He also praised the Iraqi government for approving a budget that includes $10 billion for reconstruction.

But Bush also repeated his warning to Iraq that “our patience is not unlimited” and said he told al-Maliki “how closely we’re watching” the Iraqi government’s performance.

House Democrats and some Republicans who crossed party lines to support the resolution maintained that the Iraq war has distracted the United States from the broader fight against Islamic terrorism. They also contended that military intervention cannot quell a civil war and that Iraqis must make the political compromises necessary for peace.

Nevertheless, Democrats fear being accused of endangering U.S. ground troops, which is making their leaders cautious as they weigh how to move forward. The House and Senate have yet to assess what legislation requiring Bush to alter his war strategy could pass either chamber, but several options are under discussion.

Pelosi and her close adviser, Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., are devising a strategy to tie Bush’s hands by placing conditions on future funding for the war, such as requiring any units sent to Iraq to meet certain standards for training, equipment and rest between deployments. Because those conditions might be hard to meet, they could slowly constrict Bush’s ability to keep up troop levels.

But Friday’s vote signaled peril for the Democratic congressional leadership as well. Despite deep Republican discontent with the course of the war, Democrats were unable to persuade more than 17 members of the president’s party to register that dissatisfaction with their votes. If Democratic leaders could not build a broader bipartisan coalition for a symbolic vote, it may prove much harder to attract Republican support for proposals to limit Bush’s options in Iraq.