Democrats set to seek Iraq troop withdrawals
Eye resolution on phased cuts
WASHINGTON -- Newly empowered Democrats plan to start the next congressional session with a head-on challenge to President Bush's Iraq war policy, seeking to push the Bush administration to start troop withdrawals by mid-2007, party leaders said yesterday.
The Democrats' proposal, a nonbinding resolution calling on the president to begin a "phased withdrawal" of troops from Iraq within four to six months, would be introduced in the Senate in January.
A similar plan was defeated by senators in June. But top Democrats said last week's election results will boost their efforts, with six Democrats replacing Republicans in the Senate and the public now on record against the president's war policies.
"First order of business is to change the direction of Iraq policy," Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is in line to become chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on ABC's "This Week." "The people spoke dramatically, overwhelmingly, resoundingly to change the course in Iraq, in a message that was heard around the world. I hope it was heard in the White House."
Democrats' insistence on a phased withdrawal suggests an aggressive approach by Democrats on foreign policy, in the wake of an election that gave them control of the House and Senate for the first time in 12 years. It also sets up an early clash with the Bush administration, despite vows from both sides to pursue bipartisan solutions.
White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten said the president is willing to listen to Democrats' ideas. But, echoing the president's oft-stated position, he ruled out supporting a proposal that ties troop withdrawals to specific time frames.
"Nobody can be happy with what's going on in Iraq right now," Bolten said on "This Week." "We're willing to talk about anything. [But] I don't think we're going to be receptive to the notion there's a fixed timetable at which we automatically pull out, because that could be a true disaster for the Iraqi people."
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said on
"We need to have a redeployment in Iraq," Reid said. "What does that mean? Pull everybody out now? Of course not. But it does mean that we need to change our operation there."
Levin said the resolution would send a clear message to the Iraqi people that US involvement in the country is "not open-ended." But he and other leading Democrats have ruled out the most drastic approach Congress could take to ending the war: cutting off funding. A group of House Democrats, led by Representative James P. McGovern of Worcester, is calling for such a move, but they remain a distinct minority within the Democratic caucus.
Bush is scheduled to meet today with members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, a panel formed by Congress to study Iraq policy options. Republicans and Democrats are looking to the study group to recommend a new strategy for the war, and Bush has chosen a member of that panel -- Robert M. Gates -- to be his new defense secretary. The panel will not present its final findings until next month.
Some of the ideas the committee reportedly is considering include a greater role for Iraqi troops, more pressure on the Iraqi government to end political infighting between Shi'ite and Sunni leaders, and efforts to engage nations in the region, including Iran and Syria, to help end the fighting.
It is not clear that Democratic leaders have the votes to force a policy change in Iraq, and they almost certainly lack the two-thirds majority they would need to override a presidential veto. Last week's election gave Democrats a bare 51-to-49 majority in the Senate, a count that includes the vote of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who won reelection as an independent and has been a staunch supporter of the president's war policies.
Lieberman voted against the phased withdrawal resolution in June and would almost certainly do so again. Yesterday, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Lieberman warned against conducting foreign policy "by public opinion polls" and said he plans to introduce a resolution that would establish a bipartisan congressional working group on Iraq.
"The terrorists cannot defeat us on the battlefield in Iraq, but we can lose the war here at home if we don't begin to be bipartisan about it," Lieberman said. "We're not going to fix this and succeed in Iraq without working across party lines."
When the Senate voted on the phased withdrawal amendment in June, it was opposed by Lieberman and five other Democrats. The only Republican to vote for the proposal was Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who lost his reelection bid last week.
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said "major figures in the Republican Party" are prepared to join Democrats in forcing the president to change course, but he declined to name them yesterday.
"What will ultimately move the president more than anything else [is] if the 49 Republicans, if a bunch of them say, Mr. President, we're not hanging with you on this stuff any longer," Biden said on "This Week."
Still, Democrats concede that they have a limited ability to shape foreign policy, despite their new power base in Congress.
"The truth is the president still is in charge of military and foreign policy," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said on "Fox News Sunday." "We need to work with the president to get ourselves out of Iraq. . . . Everybody in America understands that we cannot stay -- except possibly the president and Vice President [Dick] Cheney -- understands that we cannot stay in Iraq forever."
Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he still believes withdrawal decisions must be made only by military commanders. But he acknowledged that the public sent an important message on Tuesday.
"The election is not only a clarion call to the administration, but it's also notice to the Iraqi government that we're not going to be there forever," Specter, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on CNN. 