Democrats ready frontal assault on Bush Iraq plan

[Ron Burgundy]

AFP - Democrats in Congress planned a direct challenge to President George W. Bush's latest strategy for Iraq with symbolic votes that could shape the political landscape for years.

The Democratic majority that was swept to power in November's elections has made clear it will oppose plans to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq that Bush was to announce in a televised speech Wednesday night.

New York Congressman Charlie Rangel summarized Democratic scorn at Bush's efforts to spruce up an Iraqi policy that has become increasingly unpopular since the March 2003 invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.

"As someone once said, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig," Rangel told MSNBC television.

Democrats have yet to come together behind a strategy of their own, but signaled Wednesday they would put Bush's plan to what may be largely symbolic votes in both houses of Congress.

"What we are trying to come up with, is a bipartisan resolution to oppose the escalation in the war in Iraq," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) told reporters Wednesday.

"We hope to be able to have something that we can present to the Senate next week. Hearings are under way, as we speak."

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), after meeting with Bush at the White House along with other congressional leaders, promised to give his speech a "fair hearing" but said his proposal would also receive tough scrutiny in upcoming hearings.

"In our hearings, we will establish the ground truth of what is happening in Iraq and then we will vote on the president's proposal," she said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were to be first on the hot seat to defend the administration's revamp of its Iraq policy, at a series of Senate and House hearings beginning Thursday.

The planned symbolic votes in the Congress were not likely to have much constraining effect on Bush. But a sharp rebuff could highlight the president's isolation on the plan, opposed by some moderate Republicans and resisted by some top generals.

They would also commit members of Congress, including a flock of White House hopefuls, to a recorded position on Bush's policies that are sure to be a key issue in the 2008 presidential election.

Democratic leaders in Congress have already announced a series of hearings into the conduct of the Iraq war, something the Bush administration never faced when Republicans controlled Capitol Hill.

Senator Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), a longtime opponent of the continuing US military presence in Iraq, introduced legislation Tuesday requiring Bush to get prior congressional approval for a new deployment.

"My bill will say that no additional troops can be sent, and no additional dollars can be spent on such an escalation, unless and until Congress approves the presidents plan," Kennedy said.

While Congress cannot order troop deployments or withdrawals, it is in charge of the budgetary process. They could withhold funds for US troops -- a politically risky move -- or withhold funds for US contractors in Iraq.

In a letter to Bush last week, congressional leaders Reid and Pelosi urged the president to reject a proposed "surge" of additional US military forces on top of the 132,000 already deployed in Iraq.

Some Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, found themselves in the unenviable position of not wanting to be disloyal to the president but being unable to support a troop increase in Iraq.

"We respectively urge you not to include an escalation or 'surge' of US military forces as part of that new strategy," several Republican lawmakers wrote in a letter to the president Wednesday.

"Even a short-term escalation of the number of US troops in Iraq could create larger problems in the long-term," wrote the lawmakers, usually steadfast allies of the president.

Some have been more critical. Republican Senator Gordon Smith (news, bio, voting record) said Tuesday that boosting US forces in Iraq would merely extend what has been a failed US policy there.

"We've had surges before, and all it did is get a lot of American kids killed, and ultimately didn't get us where we hoped to be," Smith told Fox News.

The flurry of hearings on Iraq marks the start of a legislative push by the Democrats, who last week took control of Congress for the first time in 12 years.

In the first 100 hours of sessions they intend to pass bills on a wide range of issues, including health care, a minimum wage hike and tighter security to ward off terrorist attacks against the US homeland.