Dems seek rethink of Iraq war resolution as Murtha scheme dies
Washington Post - Febraury 23, 2007
Democrats Seek to Repeal 2002 War Authorization By Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writers
Senate Democratic leaders intend to unveil a plan next week to repeal
the 2002 resolution authorizing the war in Iraq in favor of narrower
authority that restricts the military’s role and begins withdrawals
of combat troops.
House Democrats have pulled back from efforts to link additional
funding for the war to strict troop-readiness standards after the
proposal came under withering fire from Republicans and from their
party’s own moderates. That strategy was championed by Rep. John P.
Murtha (D-Pa.) and endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“If you strictly limit a commander’s ability to rotate troops in and
out of Iraq, that kind of inflexibility could put some missions and
some troops at risk,” said Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.), who personally
lodged his concerns with Murtha.
In both chambers, Democratic lawmakers are eager to take up binding
legislation that would impose clear limits on U.S. involvement in
Iraq after nearly four years of war. But Democrats remain divided
over how to proceed. Some want to avoid the funding debate
altogether, fearing it would invite Republican charges that the party
is not supporting the troops. Others take a more aggressive view,
believing the most effective way to confront President Bush’s war
policy is through a $100 billion war-spending bill that the president
ultimately must sign to keep the war effort on track.
Last week, the House approved a nonbinding resolution that criticized
Bush’s decision to deploy an additional 21,500 troops, but the
measure was blocked in the Senate by Republicans during a rare
Saturday session. It is probable that Senate Democrats will encounter
the same procedural roadblock in attempting to push through another
resolution, in particular one with real teeth.
“I’ve had enough of ‘nonbinding,’ ” said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-
Mass.), who is helping to draft the new Democratic proposal. The 2002
war resolution, he said, is an obvious target.
“The authorization that we gave the president back in 2002 is
completely, completely outdated, inappropriate to what we’re engaged
in today,” he said.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-
Del.) began calling for a reauthorization of the war early last month
and raised it again last week, during a gathering in the office of
Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). Participants included Kerry,
Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (Mich.), Charles E.
Schumer (N.Y.), Jack Reed (R.I.) and Russell Feingold (Wis.). Those
Democratic senators have emerged as an unofficial war council
representing the caucus’s wide range of views.
“We gave the president that power to destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass
destruction and, if necessary, to depose Saddam Hussein,” Biden said
of the 2002 resolution in a speech last week before the Brookings
Institution. “The WMD was not there. Saddam Hussein is no longer
there. The 2002 authorization is no longer relevant to the situation
in Iraq.”
Biden and Levin are drafting language to present to their colleagues
when the Senate reconvenes on Tuesday, following a week-long recess.
The new framework would set a goal for withdrawing combat brigades by
March 31, 2008, the same timetable established by the bipartisan Iraq
Study Group. Once the combat phase ends, troops would be restricted
to assisting Iraqis with training, border security and counterterrorism.
Senior Democratic aides said the proposed resolution would be sent
directly to the Senate floor for action, without committee review,
possibly as an amendment to a homeland security bill scheduled for
debate next week.
Reid said no final decision had been made on the timing. Spokesman
Jim Manley said Reid wants to present the idea to other Democrats
before determining how and when to proceed.
Party leaders in the House are likely to present a proposal for
binding legislation to the Democratic caucus next week, according to
lawmakers in that chamber. But lawmakers and senior Democratic aides
said Murtha’s plan would have to be scaled back dramatically, after a
week-long Republican assault.
Murtha, chairman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee and a
leading critic of the war, had intended to fully fund Bush’s $100
billion war request for the remainder of this fiscal year. But under
his plan, those funds could be spent only to deploy combat troops
deemed fully rested, trained and equipped.
After nearly four years of combat, most military units would not be
able to meet those standards. Although the war would be fully funded,
the policy would prevent some of the 21,500 additional combat troops
from being deployed, and some troops already in Iraq would have to be
sent home.
But that approach may be all but dead, according to several
Democratic lawmakers. Murtha doomed his own plan in part by unveiling
it on a left-wing Web site, inflaming party moderates.
“Congress has no business micromanaging a war, cutting off funding or
even conditioning those funds,” said Rep. Jim Cooper (Tenn.), a
leading Democratic moderate, who called Murtha’s whole effort “clumsy.”
Cooper’s position underscores the challenges now facing the House
Democratic leadership. While the caucus’s liberal wing is demanding
legislation to end the war almost immediately, moderates such as
Cooper say Congress should focus on oversight of the war and stay
away from legislation that encroaches on the war powers of the
president.
“I think Congress begins to skate on thin ice when we start to
micromanage troop deployments and rotations,” said Texas’s Edwards,
whose views reflect those of several other Democrats from
conservative districts.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) pointed out that
Democrats still have public opinion strongly on their side and that a
vote on any plan would place Republicans in more jeopardy than
Democrats. A new, more restrictive authorization for the war also is
gaining serious consideration in the House, Emanuel noted.
Several Democratic aides say the Iraq funding bill, due for a vote
the week of March 12, may contain some of Murtha’s demands for more
training and better equipment for combat troops. But the proposals
that set the toughest requirements are likely to drop out, such as a
demand that troops be trained on and deployed with the combat
equipment they will use in Iraq.
More important, the legislation may include a waiver that the
president or defense secretary could invoke to deploy troops who are
not fully combat-ready, Democratic aides said. That way, the
commander in chief’s hands would not be tied.
But under such a bill the president would have to publicly
acknowledge that he is deploying troops with less than a year’s rest
from combat, that he is extending combat tours of troops in Iraq, or
that he is sending units into battle without full training in
counterinsurgency or urban warfare, the aides said.