• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Katrina spills into Senate's Iraq war debate

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 September 2005, 16:37 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category