Standoff over Iraq war funding looming

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - White House leaders warn that House Democrats' plan to pull troops from Iraq is unlikely to become law and sure to threaten national security if it did. Despite those bleak warnings, the House seems ready to approve its bill this week.

That means a standoff over war funding is looming, just as the battle to secure Baghdad intensifies and the war enters its fifth year.

President Bush's national security adviser said Sunday that House Democrats will assure failure in Iraq and waste the sacrifice of U.S. soldiers with their legislation to remove troops. The House's war spending bill includes a troop withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1, 2008.

Lawmakers know the president will veto the measure, national security adviser Stephen Hadley said, making the exercise a "charade."

"If we do a premature withdrawal, then what we have is a situation where the Iraqi forces cannot handle the situation, which is the case now," Hadley said. "We have Iraq as a safe haven for terrorists who will destabilize the neighbors and attack us."

Democratic lawmakers say the public put them in charge of Congress to demand more progress in Iraq — and to start getting the U.S. troops out.

The timeline for troop withdrawal under the House bill would speed up if the Iraqi government cannot meet its own benchmarks for providing security, allocating oil revenues and other essential steps. The Bush administration opposes setting such timelines.

"They talk about us micromanaging. They've mismanaged the war so badly, they put the commanders in impossible positions," said Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., who heads a House subcommittee that controls defense spending.

He added: "The public wants us out. They spoke in the last election. They're ignoring the mandate that the public gave the Congress of the United States, and in the end, they're going to have to redeploy."

The House plan appears to have little chance of getting through the Senate, where Democrats have a slimmer majority. Even if it did, Bush has promised to veto it. But the White House is aggressively trying to stop it anyway, fearful of the message the world will hear if the House approves a binding bill to end the war.

Hadley said the legislation is arbitrary. It is not realistic, for example, for Iraqis to complete political reconciliation on a timeline, he said.

"Our plea is, let's not go through this charade. Let's have the Congress present to the president a responsible bill that gives General Petraeus and the men and women in uniform the funding they need and the flexibility they need to get the job done," Hadley said. He was referring to Gen. David Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, too, said Sunday the House bill could make it impossible for military commanders to do their work.

"Frankly, as I read it, the House bill is more about withdrawal regardless of the circumstances on the ground than it is about trying to produce a positive outcome," Gates said.

Congressional Democrats, put in power in large part because of anti-war public sentiment, are trying to use their power of the purse to force action. So far, Iraq's leadership is struggling to meet the major benchmarks that it has pledged to the United States.

The impending House vote concerns a $124 billion spending bill, $95.5 billion of which is targeted for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of the other money is for unrelated domestic programs, which also has angered the White House.

Hadley spoke on ABC's "This Week" and CNN's "Late Edition." Gates spoke on CBS' "Face the Nation." Murtha spoke on CNN's "Late Edition."

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070319/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq [link]