Katrina spills into Senate’s Iraq war debate

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate opponents of the Iraq war on
Tuesday called Hurricane Katrina a wake-up call to withdraw
troops and focus on domestic needs, lawmakers of both parties
acknowledged the relief effort will make it tougher for
President George W. Bush to maintain support for the war.

“The degree of difficulty has been exponentially increased
by Katrina,” said Joseph Biden of Delaware, top Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Democrat.

“The administration has got to get its act together,” Biden
said. “Don’t give me this amorphous malarkey about we’ll stay
there until the job is done,” he said, but instead Bush must
set targets for training Iraqi troops to replace U.S. forces.

Said Sen. John McCain: “Clearly this nation is capable of
handling both expenses associated with Katrina and the Iraq
war, but there’s no doubt that Katrina is having a negative
effect on support for the war.” The Arizona Republican is a
staunch supporter of the U.S.-led Iraq invasion.

One of the Senate’s fiercest Iraq war opponents, West
Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, said in a floor speech the
federal government’s faltering response to the Gulf Coast’s
devastation from Katrina showed that the Iraq war has drained
needed resources at home.

“The sound of Katrina’s bugle must be heeded,” Byrd said.
“We cannot continue to commit billions in Iraq when our own
people are so much in need, not only now, in New Orleans, but
all across America for everything from education to health care
to homeland security to securing our own borders.”

He said Iraq invasion “was never supposed to be an
open-ended peacekeeping mission, with our troops mired amid the
chaos of continuing warfare.”

Byrd spoke as Bush met with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani
in Washington and pledged to “stand with the Iraqi people as
they move forward with the Democratic process.”

MASSIVE TAX CUTS, SPENDING

A number of lawmakers questioned how the nation could
afford the massive Gulf Coast relief effort — with $62 billion
federal dollars already committed and tens of billions more
expected — along with the Iraq war that has cost close to $300
billion so far.

“It’s the combination of massive tax cuts combined with
massive spending on Iraq and Katrina when we already weren’t
able to pay our bills,” said Kent Conrad of North Dakota, top
Senate Budget Committee Democrat. “The fiscal implications of
it all are becoming more acute,” he said.

Byrd and others said Katrina also raised questions on
whether the National Guard’s ability to respond was curtailed
by the drain of its forces and equipment to Iraq.

“Katrina’s dramatizing the way in which our troops have
been overstretched, overused and the need to find some way to
reduce their presence in Iraq,” said Carl Levin of Michigan,
top Senate Armed Services Committee Democrat.

In Louisiana on Monday, Bush said, “We’ve got plenty of
troops to do both … It is preposterous to claim that the
engagement in Iraq meant there wasn’t enough troops here.”

Despite the pressures of Katrina, several lawmakers said
Bush must maintain support for the Iraq operation because the
United States has too much to lose if he fails.

“We’ve put our treasure and our moral authority and the
lives of our soldiers to this effort,” said Alabama Republican
Sen. Jeff Sessions. “A lot of Americans wish we’d never been
there and it hadn’t cost so much … but that’s not the
question.”

If Bush fails, Biden said Americans will be left with a
“Hobson’s choice” of continuing to commit U.S. lives and money
to an unsuccessful strategy, or pulling troops out and leaving
Iraq in a civil war and as a hotbed of terrorism.