Antiwar Dems in Congress Face Tough Choices

By John Nichols, The Nation. Posted March 17, 2007.

The House Appropriations Committee deliberations on whether to advance an Iraq War spending bill that includes provisions seeking to extract U.S. troops from the conflict by next year points up the challenge faced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the coming week.

Pelosi, who voted against authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq, has been clear about her desire to bring the war to a conclusion. As Pelosi said this week: "Any U.S. military engagement must be judged on three counts -- whether it makes our country safer, our military stronger or the region more stable. The war in Iraq fails on all three scores."

Yet, to Pelosi's view, the only way to do that is by providing the money for continuance of the war over the course of at least another year. This is a painful political calculation, she says, arguing that the neither the Democratic caucus not the full House is not prepared to back a quick exit strategy.

As Pelosi has said over the years, "There is no one Democratic voice . . . and there is no one Democratic position (on the war)." Members of her own leadership team, including Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House, approved of the war initially and have never been comfortable in the anti-war camp. And, while there are many House Democrats who favor the rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the quagmire, there are a handful of Joe Lieberman-like Democrats who really do want to "stay the course." And there are many more who are afraid to take responsibility for ending the war because, even though the notion in popular in polling, post-withdrawal realities on the ground in the Middle East could be ugly enough to cause second thoughts on the part of voters.

So, in hopes of initially uniting Democrats and then creating a new center of gravity in the House that might see a significant number of Republicans sign on to a "troops home" measure, Pelosi and two of her closest allies, Appropriations Committee chair David Obey, D-Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha, who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee charges with oversight of military spending, have set out to use the spending bill as a tool to reframe the debate about the war.

It is the sort of serious legislative move that gets points from government teachers but that leaves activists cold. And Pelosi has struggled to keep her balance in the face of fierce attacks from the White House and the Republican National Committee for trying to "micromanage" the war -- GOP press releases refer to her deridingly as "General Pelosi" -- and from progressives who say she is not doing enough to bring the troops home.

The essential objection to the legislation Pelosi, Obey and Murtha are pushing so aggressively is that it does not end the war. In fact, it funds the war for a year or more -- perhaps even providing sufficient resources for the president to pursue his objectives until the end of his tenure in 2009.

Pelosi and her allies speak of establishing benchmarks and timelines designed to force the president's hand; "We are trying to end the authorization of the war if the Iraqis and the administration don't perform," says Obey, who got in trouble last week for referring to critics of the plan's caution as "idiot liberals."

Unfortunately for Obey and Pelosi, the "idiot liberals" have a point when they say that the Democratic leadership plan offers no assurance that U.S. troops will be extracted from Iraq in 2008.

The spending bill is too vague and soft to be counted on to actually do that. As California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, perhaps the most ardent war foe in the House said when voting against the Pelosi plan Thursday, "I don't think the president deserves another chance."

Lee has been blunt in saying that she believes "the American people sent a mandate to us to bring home our men and women before the end of the year," and she has proposed an amendment to the spending bill that would do just that. Lee's plan would provide funding for bringing the troops home safely rather than continuing the war.

Out of deference to Obey, arguably the strongest committee chair on the Hill, Lee did not offer her amendment during the Appropriations Committee deliberations. Those deliberations saw all the other Democrats on the committee vote for the measure, which was approved and sent to the full House by a vote of 36-28.

But, Lee, a Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair, says. "Still, too many of our troops are dying in an occupation that needs to end sooner rather than later, and I will continue to push for enforceable timelines and to protect our troops and to fully fund their safe and orderly withdrawal from Iraq at the earliest practicable date."

Anti-war activists who have been pushing for Congress to use the "power of the purse" to defund the war are organizing to push House members to back the Lee amendment. In an email sent today, Peace Action executive director Kevin Martin notes the coming fourth anniversary of the war's start and says to the group's tens of thousands of backers, "I need you to tell Congress this must be the last such anniversary we observe.

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John Nichols is The Nation's Washington correspondent.

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