Congress to debate conduct in Iraq
Parties seek to clarify stances before elections
WASHINGTON -- Congress this week is poised to conduct its most comprehensive debate on the Iraq war since the House and Senate voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein nearly four years ago, with both Democrats and Republicans eager to delineate the parties' differences in advance of this fall's congressional elections.
The Senate today will begin debate on an amendment that would force President Bush to withdraw nearly all US troops from Iraq by the end of the year. The measure, filed yesterday by Senator John F. Kerry, has no realistic chance of passing but is designed as an outlet for members of Congress to express themselves about the administration's course of action in the war.
``What's important here is that there be an honest debate about the war and where we are today," said Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. ``This debate clarifies what the issues really are. It requires people to take a position with regard to what the best course is in Iraq, and it helps define that best course."
In the House, Republican leaders have set aside a full day of debate on the war on Thursday. They are calculating that raising the issue so soon after terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi died in a US airstrike will highlight progress in Iraq and help paint Democrats who still criticize the war as espousing policies that could harm national security.
``There are clear differences between Republicans and Democrats on how best to confront the global war on terror, and the American public deserves to hear how their elected representatives will respond," House majority leader John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement issued by his office yesterday. ``Will we fight or will we retreat?"
The fact that Democrats and Republicans are equally intent on debating the war in Iraq speaks to the volatile and unpredictable politics surrounding it. Public support for the war is sagging, yet many Republicans believe that their party's aggressive national security policy is a strength voters will reward at the polls.
Scott Reed, a Republican consultant, said there is no way for the president and Republicans in Congress to separate themselves from the war in Iraq. Therefore, he said, Republicans' most compelling message is to argue that their party is keeping the nation safe, through the Iraq war and battles against terrorists that are playing out elsewhere, he said.
``They can remind people every day that since [the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks], this country has not been hit again," Reed said. ``That's a powerful reminder of the price of security, and it doesn't take much to get heads bobbing [in agreement] again."
Indeed, the proposed House resolution illustrates the terms under which Republicans hope to frame the war in Iraq. The latest draft of the resolution explicitly links Iraq and the battle against terrorism, stating that the United States ``is committed to the completion of the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure, and united Iraq" and declares ``that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the noble struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary."
Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the head of the Democrats' House campaign committee, said the resolution has been crafted to ``embarrass Democrats" rather than to allow true engagement over the Bush administration's conduct of the war.
Congress could debate any of the dozens of pending proposals to change the course of the war through troop deployment, increasing military firepower, or use of contractors to free up some personnel, said Representative James P. McGovern, a Worcester Democrat who voted against the war and remains opposed to it . Instead, Republican leaders want to debate ``meaningless platitudes," he said.
``They don't want a debate that will impact -- in any way, shape, or form -- policy," McGovern said. ``Most people will see through it."
Though the war is a subject that members of Congress regularly hear about from their constituents, neither the House nor the Senate has had a wide-ranging debate on Iraq since Congress granted Bush the authority to use force in October 2002. The United States and its allies invaded Iraq in March 2003.
Last November, House Republican leaders debated a resolution calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops, a move to set up the proposal for an overwhelming defeat. But that turned into a black eye for the GOP when Representative Jean Schmidt, a freshman Republican from Ohio, attacked Representative John P. Murtha -- a respected Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated Vietnam veteran -- by suggesting that he was a ``coward" for endorsing a policy of ``cut and run."
In the Senate, Kerry dismissed as ``scare tactics" any depictions of his proposal as a retreat. He said his plan would leave in place US troops who are training Iraqi security forces, and would also leave behind an ``over-the-horizon" troop contingent who could respond to security crises in Iraq or in the surrounding area.
``There's no element at all of `cut and run,' " Kerry said. ``What you're doing is shifting responsibility to the Iraqis, which is what the president said we would do in the first place." 