WASHINGTON, May 22: US President George W. Bush won a battle over funding the Iraq war as congressional Democrats on Tuesday abandoned troop withdrawal efforts for now but pledged to fight with new legislation in July.
Senior congressional aides said a $100 billion war funding bill the US Congress is trying to finish this week will not contain timetables for withdrawing most of the 147,000 US troops from Iraq, as anti-war Democrats had hoped.
On May 1, Bush vetoed Congress’ first version of this year’s emergency war funds bill because it set an Oct 1 deadline for starting to pull out soldiers.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said that finishing touches on a new bill were still being worked on with the White House.
But acknowledging the political realities of the Democrats’ narrow control of Congress and a White House occupied by a Republican, Hoyer told reporters: “The president has made it very clear he’s not going to sign timelines (for withdrawing troops). We can’t pass timelines over his veto.”
That will be a disappointment for many Democrats who think they won control of Congress in last November’s elections largely because voters wanted to see an end to the four-year-old war in Iraq.
Hoyer said Democrats will continue pushing for a “change in direction” in Iraq, where at least 3,420 US soldiers have been killed and more than 34,000 wounded.
“Certainly we’ll do it in July when Mr Murtha’s bill is on the floor,” Hoyer said.
He was referring to Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has led efforts in the House of Representatives to end US combat involvement in the Iraq war. In July, Murtha will shepherd a military funding bill through the House for the next fiscal year, which begins on Oct 1.
SURRENDER DATES: Bush and most Republicans have argued that setting goal dates for withdrawing US troops would rob military commanders of the flexibility they need to conduct the war. Such timetables, according to many Republicans, amount to nothing more than “surrender dates”.
Despite those charges, even some congressional Republicans are beginning to talk about September or October as the timeframe for reassessing US progress in the war and possibly coming up with a “Plan B”.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said the current US troop escalation to help secure Iraq could be Baghdad’s “last chance to get it right”. But he has refused to elaborate.—Reuters
