In recent weeks, the congressional Dems’ plans for Iraq started to take on a wake-me-when-it’s-over quality. They were going to embrace Murtha’s “readiness strategy,” then they weren’t. They were going to revisit the 2002 AUMF resolution, then they weren’t. They were going to consider additional nonbinding resolutions, then they weren’t.
Everyone seemed ready to move to the next phase of the debate, but no one was quite sure what Dems wanted to do about it. Yesterday, that became considerably clearer.
Democratic leaders outlined plans Thursday to compel President Bush to begin withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq as soon as this summer, marking the first time the majority in Congress had called for a deadline to end the unpopular war.
The proposals dramatically shift the debate on Capitol Hill from symbolic measures to concrete plans to bring troops home just two months after Democrats assumed power.
“Our troops must be out,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who has spent weeks trying to craft legislation to fulfill her party’s electoral mandate to end the war.
A non-binding resolution this is not.
The president announced a series of benchmarks for Iraq in January, and House Dems would add teeth to those benchmarks. As Slate’s Daniel Politi explained, Bush would have until July 1 to demonstrate progress on his own plan or combat troops would be withdrawn by the end of the year. And if the president can point to actual signs of progress, troops would begin withdrawing by March 1, 2008 and all combat troops would have to be out by Aug. 31.
Pelosi and the Dem leaders also included additional defense spending, which Republicans claim to want, including additional billions for veterans’ health care, operations in Afghanistan, and domestic security.
The White House was less than receptive.
Bush administration officials escalated the fight over a new spending package for the Iraq war yesterday, saying for the first time that the president will veto a House Democratic plan because it includes a timetable to start bringing troops home within a year and would undermine military efforts. […]
White House counselor Dan Barlett told reporters aboard Air Force One, as the president left for a six-day trip to Latin America, that the House’s $105 billion spending package is tailored more to solving infighting among Democrats over how to proceed on the war than in helping troops on the ground.
“It’s safe to say it’s a nonstarter for the president,” Bartlett said.
As one might expect, passage is hardly assured. Even in the House, plenty of Dem members on the left believe withdrawal should be immediate, so the new plan is too accommodating. Some Dems on the right worry that the plan amounts to “micromanaging.”
And Senate Dems have another approach, with a binding resolution that would “direct the president to begin a phased redeployment within 120 days of enactment with a goal to redeploy all combat forces by March 31, 2008.”
Given all of this, it’s too soon to say what’s going to happen, but I’ll tell you what I like about it: the House measure puts Republicans on the defensive. GOP lawmakers would have to vote against funding the war, against money for veterans’ health care, and against a timeline that enjoys broad national support. All the Republican rhetoric from the last several war appropriations votes comes to mind — what are lawmakers going to do, vote against funding the war while troops are in the field?
Stay tuned.