Democrats Seek Votes for Bill on Iraq
WASHINGTON, March 22 — House Democrats were scrambling today to find the 218 votes needed to pass a war spending bill that would set a timetable to bring American troops home from Iraq, as the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans worked aggressively to foil their effort.
The White House said the $124 billion spending measure had “zero chance” to survive a presidential veto, and the Pentagon warned that it could cause considerable harm to troops.
“Congress needs to get their business done quickly, get the moneys we’ve requested funded, and let our folks on the ground do the job,” President Bush said after a meeting with officials headed soon to Iraq to help with reconstruction.
The vote is scheduled for Friday — delayed a day so Democratic leaders could meet with wavering lawmakers. The vote holds high stakes for Democrats, coming a week after Senate Republicans narrowly turned back a resolution to limit the troop presence.
Meantime, a Senate committee approved a similar measure day to provide $122 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but calls on Mr. Bush to withdraw combat troops by next spring.
Republican members of the Senate Appropriations Committee unsuccessfully attempted to delete the withdrawal language before deciding to try again when the full Senate takes up the measure next week.
The president’s press secretary, Tony Snow, warned lawmakers that the House bill “has zero chance to be enacted into law.” The White House has threatened to veto the Senate bill, too.
“It’s bad legislation,” Mr. Snow said. “The president is going to veto it and Congress will sustain that veto.”
He added, “You have people on Capitol Hill trying to buy or cajole votes for a bill that’s not going to pass.”
Separately, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned of a “genuinely adverse effect” on troops if money for the war was to run out, which he said would begin to happen within a month or two if a spending measure is not passed.
Several antiwar liberals, including Representative John Lewis of Georgia, have said they oppose the measure.
Republicans are expected to stand nearly united against it. The House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, said that passage would “without question lead to failure” in Iraq. He predicted that Congress ultimately would provide the war-fighting money without conditions.
As debate opened in the House of Representatives today, the Democrats remained shy of the 218 votes needed for passage in the 435-seat chamber. Republicans have complained about provisions — from reconstruction aid for hurricane victims to a subsidy for spinach farmers — being added to the bill by a Democratic leadership that holds only a modest majority in the House.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/wa...d-cong.html?hp
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Originally Posted by Gaffer
