On Capitol Hill, much said, little changed on Iraq

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - Lawmakers quizzed top U.S. commanders Thursday. Senators repudiated President Bush on a war-spending bill. Barack Obama visited the Capitol to accuse presidential rival John McCain of "partisan posturing" on Iraq.

When the noise and dust settled, what was accomplished? Almost nothing in terms of forcing Bush to change his policies in the five-year-old conflict, despite the mandate that voters seemed to hand Democrats in 2006.

"At the end of the day, we'll get funding for the war without any strings attached," said a smiling Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, minutes after he and his Republican ally McCain suffered a stinging defeat on a war-spending bill that Bush vows to veto.

Democratic leaders, even in the afterglow of their surprising win, couldn't argue.

"This isn't the time to debate the policy of the war in Iraq," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters when asked if anything Congress was doing would change conditions in the war zone.

Seventeen months after taking control of Congress, Democrats still can barely dent Bush's Iraq strategy. Their repeated failures infuriate and bewilder anti-war groups that helped some of them to election — and have been instrumental in pushing Obama past Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the party's presidential primaries.

But such groups, as well as their pro-war counterparts, are losing leverage these days. For one thing, Iraq is substantially less violent than it was a year ago, causing voters to focus more on the economy, and leading many policymakers to rethink the wisdom of a rapid U.S. withdrawal.

At the same time, Obama and McCain are turning their attention to centrist voters who will decide the November election.

Obama still vows to withdraw U.S. combat troops in 16 months or less. But top aides quietly point to escape clauses he has sprinkled into documents and interviews. Numerous outside observers think he is likely, if elected, to take a more deliberate approach to disengagement.

He would face "extraordinary pressure" from anti-war groups to withdraw troops rapidly, said Matt Bennett, vice president of Third Way, a policy group with centrist-Democratic leanings. "But I think Obama will have a lot of latitude" to resist, because he would enter the White House as a powerful "transformational president," Bennett said.

McCain, meanwhile, recently suggested 2013 as a possible end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, where he envisions victory without detailing how to achieve it. Many saw that date as a switch from his earlier denouncements of timelines, although McCain insisted it was not.

In Congress, the biggest impediment to forcing changes has not changed in 17 months. The Democrats' House and Senate majorities are not big enough to produce the supermajorities needed to override Bush's vetoes of efforts to force him to wind down the war.

Recently, such bids have lost much of their steam. The Senate voted 63-34 Thursday to reject yet another Democratic bid to urge Bush to begin withdrawing combat troops.

That leaves lawmakers to rant and joust on more peripheral issues. They include Iraq veterans' benefits, which brought Obama and his presidential ambitions to the Senate chamber Thursday.

Against Bush's wishes, the Senate easily approved a $165 billion war-funding bill, which includes numerous domestic projects and billions of dollars for extended unemployment benefits and veterans' college aid. Still, Bush has enough support in Congress to sustain the veto that he promises he'll order because of the nonmilitary spending items, which critics call pork.

Two dozen Republican senators backed the bill, partly because it would substantially increase college benefits for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. McCain, who spent Thursday campaigning in California, opposes the measure, citing a government estimate that it would depress re-enlistments by those wanting to attend college after only a few years in uniform.

Obama whacked him in a Senate speech, saying he disagreed with such predictions.

"I firmly believe," the Illinois senator said, "that in the long term this will strengthen our military" and attract more recruits.

"I respect Senator John McCain's service to our country," Obama said, calling the former Vietnam prisoner of war a hero. "But I can't understand why he would line up behind the president in opposition to this G.I. bill. ... There are many issues that lend themselves to partisan posturing, but giving our veterans the chance to go to college should not be one of them."

McCain returned fire from California. "I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did," he said.

Despite such exchanges, the next president, whoever it is, will have to draw down troops to some extent because the Army and Marines are being stretched to the limits, said Stephen Biddle, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The new president also will confront a public that "harbors mutually contradictory preferences," Biddle said. "They want the troop count down, and they want Iraq stabilized," he said, although one goal probably precludes the other.

Susan Rice, a top military adviser to Obama, said of Iraq: "You've got bad options, and worse options."

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill Thursday, both Democratic and Republican senators questioned the two generals who will be running the war for the foreseeable future: Gen. David Petraeus, who is being promoted from his job as top commander in Iraq, and Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, who is replacing him.

Petraeus was pressed to say when troops would be coming home. He said he was likely to recommend reductions in Iraq but wouldn't promise details until fall.

Clinton, a war critic of long standing, thanked the generals for their "incredible leadership."

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Charles Babington covers the presidential campaign for The Associated Press.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080522/ap_on_an/iraq_just_talk [link]