The US House of Representatives on
Friday issued a rebuke to George W.
Bush’s Iraq strategy in the first
concrete demonstration of opposition
to the war by Capitol Hill since the
US-led invasion almost four years
ago.
The 246-182 vote was
non-binding and will have no impact
on Mr Bush’s plan to deploy 21,500
extra troops in addition to the
131,000 already there as part of his
“new way forward in Iraq” unveiled
last month.
But leaders of the Democratic
party, which won midterm
congressional elections in November
largely on the back of disaffection
over Iraq, said yesterday’s symbolic
step would be followed by measures
to limit Mr Bush’s ability to
“escalate” the war.
The vote, to be followed by a
similar one in the Senate on
Saturday, marked the most
significant questioning of a US
president’s wartime authority since
the 1970 vote to rescind the 1964
Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which led
to war in Vietnam.
Nancy Pelosi, Democratic speaker
of the House, said: “The stakes in
Iraq are too high to recycle
proposals that have little prospect
for success. The passage of this
legislation will signal a change in
direction in Iraq that will end the
fighting and bring our troops home.”
The White House said Friday’s
resolution went against the wishes
of the Iraqi government and the US
military in Iraq.
“They
[supporters of the resolution] are
gambling on failure,” said Tony
Snow, White House spokesman. “The
president has a plan for
success...What we’re afraid of is
that this is, in fact, going to
serve as a precursor for cutting off
our troops.”
Democratic leaders plan to tread
a fine line in the next few weeks
that will involve taking further
steps to oppose Mr Bush’s
prosecution of the war - such as
attaching conditions to future
congressional funding of military
operations - while also making it
clear they will continue to support
American troops in the field.
“The Democratic party is highly
conscious of the fact that the
overwhelming majority of the
American public opposed the Vietnam
war and yet it was the Democrats who
emerged as the losers politically,”
said Mark Schmitt at the New America
Foundation, a centrist think-tank in
Washington.
Among Democratic plans being
floated are measures that would
require the Iraqi government to meet
certain benchmarks before new funds
were authorised and conditions on
the US administration’s ability to
redeploy military units to the
battlefield. The US army has
complained that it is severely
under-equipped and overstretched.
