House Vote on Iraq Spending Expected
WASHINGTON _ In a bid to put pressure on the Iraqi government and President Bush, the House of Representatives will vote today on a bill that would release about half the funds Bush wants for the war through September, but would hold back the rest unless Iraq meets goals for a fair political system and an end of factional violence.
The measure is expected to pass the House with most Republicans voting against it, but it doesn’t have enough support to clear the Senate. What will be important in the weeks ahead will be negotiations with the Senate and the White House on terms of a final war-funding bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said before the House vote.
The Senate does not agree on the House bill’s specific approach, but supports the same principles of demanding accountability from the Iraqi government and insisting on consequences if it continues to do nothing, Pelosi said.
Meanwhile Tuesday, in a call for a bipartisan approach and compromise with the White House, Sen. Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine, and Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., introduced a bill that would require the Iraqi government to meet key benchmarks in 120 days.
If they fail to meet them, U.S. forces sent in for the surge would be redeployed, and all other U.S. forces would shift to a more limited mission: training, equipping and assisting Iraqi forces, protecting Americans, conducting attacks on terrorists and any other missions that the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, considers vital.
The House plan calls for the same new mission for U.S. forces if Iraq makes no progress to reduce violence and expand representative government, but it sets a deadline of July 13 for determining progress. It also demands that Bush must get waivers from Congress if he deploys troops who do not have sufficient rest, training and equipment.
Bush requested nearly $96 billion for the Department of Defense for extra funding this year, mostly for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The House bill would release about $43 billion immediately. It would vote again on July 23 or 24 on the remaining $53 billion.
Snowe, one of the most senior Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was in Iraq over the weekend. She said Baghdad was worse off than during her last visit. Snowe said that Iraqi politicians need to realize that the crucial time for them to act is now, while the surge is giving them a window of opportunity. Instead, she said they were showing “intransigence” while American forces were fighting bravely in a complex and dangerous war.
Snowe said she’d talked about her plan on Tuesday with White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolton, who’s negotiating over war spending with congressional leaders.
Other ideas for legislation are being discussed in the Senate, all aimed at putting pressure on Iraq’s government. Bush is opposed to using a troop withdrawal deadline to put pressure on Iraq.
The benchmarks being discussed in Washington are those the Iraqi government set for itself. So far it has failed to meet deadlines on all of them. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group and Bush have backed the same benchmarks.
They include disarming violent sectarian militias, passing an oil law that would distribute oil revenues among all Iraqi groups, making political changes to address the concerns of minority groups and holding provincial elections.
Iraqi leaders have said they need more time. Their parliament plans to take a two-month recess this summer. Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad this week and pressed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not to let the legislature take the vacation.
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(c) 2007, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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