Democrats score hard-fought win on Iraq

The House voted Friday to withdraw troops from Iraq no later than September 2008, the Democrats’ strongest challenge yet to President Bush’s handling of the war.

The narrow 218-212 vote on a binding $124 billion supplemental war spending bill was a victory for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who had been facing a serious challenge to her leadership from the right and left wings of her party.

“Congress has voted to begin the end of the war,” an ebullient Pelosi said after the vote.

Bush quickly took to the airwaves, flanked by a soldier and a veteran, to reiterate his veto threat, and put the blame on Democrats in Congress if the military runs into funding trouble.

“Congress needs to send me a clean bill I can sign without delay,” Bush said in a brief address from the White House. “This bill has too much pork, too many conditions and an arbitrary timetable for withdrawal. This is not gonna happen.”

The more immediate question is whether a Democratic supplemental spending bill can pass the Senate, where it is scheduled for debate next week. Democrats predicted they can pass a bill, despite the hurdle of needing at least nine Republican votes to secure the 60 votes needed. In addition, some Democrats could defect, setting the bar even higher for Senate leaders. Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), a self-described Independent Democrat who caucuses with the Democrats, and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) are among those that could vote against the measure.

As the week began, passage of the bill still looked like a steep uphill climb for Democratic leaders. However, they convinced enough centrists and liberals, many of whom had called for stronger language, to support the legislation.

It took more than a week of cajoling and buttonholing reluctant Democrats to get to the needed 217 votes (there is a vacancy and another member is ill). Republicans criticized some of the agricultural spending in the bill as “buying votes” of conservative rural members.

A key turn of events came late in the week, when the leaders of the liberal Out of Iraq caucus released members from their commitments to vote against the bill.

“We said, ‘Do not do this for us,’” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), a founder of the caucus. “If you can win with either a yes or a no, consider supporting the leadership. It might be better for you at the end.”

Fourteen Democrats voted against the legislation. Pelosi, in a news conference after the vote, said there would be no political retaliation for their votes. But Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) made that a mixed message.

“I don’t even know who the 14 are,” Pelosi said.

But Clyburn, standing behind her, chimed in, “I do.”

Two Republicans, Reps. Walter Jones (N.C.) and Wayne Gilchrist (Md.), voted for the bill. Their support was crucial, politically if not numerically.

“Wayne and Walter are going to be judged well by history,” said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.).
Also, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) voted present. Republicans chose not to offer a motion to recommit during the vote, citing concerns that conservative Democrats planned to use the legislation as political cover.

“A motion to recommit is a perfecting amendment to the underlying bill but this bill is fundamentally and fatally flawed,” said Brian Kennedy, spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). “This bill is indefensible and an offense to our troops.”

Kennedy added, “If Democrats are going to pursue a reprehensible path, they’ll have to do it by themselves.”

The floor was uncharacteristically full of lawmakers as the debate came to an end and moved to a vote. Johnson, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, closed for the Republicans.

Pelosi closed for Democrats, but was preceded by Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), an Iraq war veteran who noted that 19 of his fellow paratroopers died there.

“In the military, we have a saying: ‘Lead, follow or get out of the way,’” Murphy said. “For the last four years, this Congress followed. No longer is this Congress going to stand idly by.”

Much of the debate focused on whether Democrats had larded up the bill with pork, such as aid to spinach, seafood and peanut interests, to win over reluctant lawmakers.

“What does throwing money at Bubba Gump, Popeye the Sailor Man and Mr. Peanut have to do with winning the war? Nothing,” said Johnson.

But House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) said the non-war programs were “leftovers” that Republicans in the last Congress had left unfunded because they couldn’t pass spending bills.

“They left us with all this because they couldn’t run a two-car funeral last year,” Obey said.

Right after the gavel fell for the vote, two protesters began screaming in the gallery. One, a man whose shirt read “You buy it you own it,” began yelling and was quickly led from the chamber. The other, a woman, cried out, “Don’t buy this war!” and was pulled out of the chamber yelling, “Troops home now, troops home now!” She was whisked into the third-floor hallway that leads to Minority Whip Roy Blunt’s (R-Mo.) office, put up against a wall and restrained with plastic handcuffs.

A group of people from the organization Military Families Speak Out said the woman’s name was Laurie, but declined to give her last name. They said her nephew is soon to be deployed to Iraq.

“She speaks for many of us,” Nancy Lessin, co-founder of the group, said as she stood waiting for the woman in the third-floor corridor. “This is a bill that will fund the continuation of the war.”