Appropriator predicts Iraq withdrawal mandate could pass House
Fight would be more difficult in the Senate, where 60 votes would be needed to overcome filibuster, vocal war opponent says.
House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., said Monday he expects Democrats to set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq when the House debates a spending bill next month to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in early fiscal 2008.
Murtha did not provide specifics on the language, but acknowledged it would likely take 12 to 15 months "to get everything out," including most of the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and their equipment. A fierce and vocal opponent of the war, Murtha acknowledged voters' dissatisfaction with the Democratic majority's inability to alter the Bush administration's Iraq war policy.
"The Democrats who elected us are unhappy with the Democrats in Congress," Murtha said at the National Press Club. He expressed confidence that a deadline for withdrawing troops could easily pass the House, but said it would be a more difficult fight in the Senate, where Democrats need 60 votes to overcome a likely Republican filibuster. "We have a plan which we think we can sell in the House," Murtha said.
In his remarks, Murtha criticized the Bush administration's plans to bring troop levels in Iraq down to pre-surge numbers by July, calling it merely a necessary step, given the lack of ready replacement troops, and not part of a new strategic plan. Murtha added he would be dissatisfied with any efforts in the Senate to focus on changing the mission in Iraq rather than setting a deadline for withdrawal.
As the Senate takes up the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill this week, Senate Democrats will introduce several Iraq amendments, with at least one of them expected to allow a residual U.S. military force to remain to train Iraqi security forces and for counterterrorism operations. The threat of a GOP filibuster could make Democrats back away from setting a firm timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces.
"Iraq is occupying us," Murtha said, expressing his impatience with any type of open-ended commitment in Iraq. "We are bleeding money at the rate of $12 billion a month."
Meanwhile, Murtha said he is considering funding the war -- the cost of which could top $200 billion in fiscal 2008 -- in three-month intervals. Doing so would force repeated congressional votes on Iraq, giving Democrats regular opportunities to debate the Bush administration's conduct of the war.
But the military's next supplemental spending bill will not even be considered until after the start of the fiscal year Oct. 1 -- a delay that one senior military official warned could put the armed forces in a precarious funding situation. Murtha noted that Congress will have to pass a continuing resolution for the base Defense spending bill to cover the Defense Department for the first month or more of fiscal 2008.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of the $459.3 billion Defense measure last week, in the hopes of bringing it to the floor before October.