Senate Dems reluctant to try to revoke Iraq war authority

The five-year anniversary of the congressional resolution to authorize the Iraq war is less than three weeks away, and prospects for legislation by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and others to revoke that authority have dissipated in the face of stiff opposition within the Senate Democratic Caucus.

{mosads}The issue of de-authorization has been fodder along the presidential campaign trail, but has been largely ignored in the halls of Congress, where senior Democrats argue it would do little to change the conduct of the war.

“I think it raises more problems than it solves,” said Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who is managing the pending defense authorization bill, the vehicle for this month’s Iraq debate in the Senate.

After coming under fire from the anti-war left over her 2002 vote in favor of the authorizing resolution, Clinton took the issue to the Senate floor in May, when she announced her intention to co-sponsor a bill with Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) to make Oct. 11 — the resolution’s five-year anniversary — the official expiration date of congressional authorization of the war. The measure said if President Bush were to continue with operations in Iraq unrelated to withdrawing troops, he would need to get new authority from Congress.

“I believe this fall is the time to review the Iraq war authorization and to have a full national debate so the people can be heard,” said Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner, in her highly publicized May 3 floor speech.

But as the Senate resumes consideration this week of the defense authorization bill, several Iraq amendments are likely to head for a floor vote — and the Byrd-Clinton amendment doesn’t appear to be one of them.

Meanwhile, some of Clinton’s campaign rivals may see their favored measures come up for a vote this week. On Tuesday, the Senate is expected to vote and likely reject a plan by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) to partition Iraq into its three rival ethnic factions (see related story). Clinton’s chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), is working to get a vote on portions of his amendment that would tighten oversight of security contractors in Iraq in the wake of the controversy surrounding recent shootings by Blackwater USA employees (see related story).. But it’s unclear whether the Senate will vote on Obama’s plan.

Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the main reason why the de-authorization plan is not a component of the Democratic leadership’s Iraq floor strategy is because it is not “easily understood.” By contrast, he said, other plans have broad support within the caucus, such as timetables to withdraw troops and measures to extend leave between deployments.

Durbin said even if lawmakers withdrew the authority, “would the president continue the war and ignore the Congress? We’re not sure that [the Byrd-Clinton plan] would have the intended result.”

Even the anti-war left has been privately skeptical of that plan. In a strategy meeting last Friday of major anti-war activist groups, there was “no enthusiasm” for the legislation to de-authorize the war, according to one person who attended the meeting.

Clinton and Byrd aren’t the only senators to call for a revocation of the war authority. For instance, Biden in February spoke at the Brookings Institution, calling for the president to seek new authority from Congress.

“The [weapons of mass destruction] were not there. Saddam Hussein is no longer there. The 2002 authorization is no longer relevant to the situation in Iraq,” Biden said.

At the beginning of the 110th Congress, the measure was on the forefront of the agenda of the Democratic leadership, which tried to develop a consensus caucus position on revoking the president’s authority for the war. But that push drew skepticism from centrists, who did not want to pull back the existing authority, as well as from the liberal wing of the caucus, which did not want to give the president any new authority related to Iraq.

“We would wind up authorizing what we have now — so it’s complicated,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) told The Hill last week.

As a result of the disagreements within the caucus, some Democrats considered drafting language that would define a limited role for U.S. troops, such as counterterrorism and training. That language has morphed into what is now the amendment co-sponsored by Levin and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) that calls for a withdrawal of most troops from Iraq in nine months, as well as limited operations for the U.S. military. The Senate rejected the Levin-Reed amendment last week by a 47-47 vote.

With Republicans blocking the Levin-Reed measure and other troop withdrawal plans, critics of the war have been searching for authoritative plans that could garner broad support within the GOP conference. But the de-authorization measure is unlikely to woo even the most ardent anti-war Republicans.

“I don’t think we should waste our time on that,” said Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a vocal opponent of the war. “That’s not going to change anything.”

Aides to Clinton and Byrd on Monday signaled that their bosses were still planning on pushing forward with their plans, regardless of the outlook.

Jenny Thalheimer, a spokeswoman for Byrd, said the veteran senator continues to pursue ways to bring troops home quickly and safely, saying the resolution is “outdated and needs to be readdressed.”

Philippe Reines, press secretary for Clinton, said that the senator is seeking “any and all possible ways” to reverse the current course in Iraq.

“Forcing the president to seek a new authorization for the war in Iraq is another powerful way to make him accountable to the Congress and the American people, who have expressed their overwhelming desire for a change of course in Iraq,” Reines said.