Grassroots Groups Seek to Influence Iraq Policy

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• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  As congressional leaders struggle to reach agreement with the Bush administration over war funding, they're feeling outside pressure from a wide range of sources.

  REP. RAHM EMANUEL (D), Illinois: There isn't a member across the ideological, the entire spectrum, geographic or ideological in our district, who isn't getting pressure from their constituents.

• PROTESTORS:

  Money for jobs and education! Not for war and occupation!

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  And many of the constituents have organized. The Democrats' anti-war flank has raised the volume on their demands that the party move to end the war now.

• PROTESTORS:

  We want our troops home now, General Petraeus.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Republicans, meanwhile, want to avoid having to defend an unpopular war into another election cycle. Their leaders are now considering their own deadline, this September, as the limit of their tolerance if the president's surge plan does not succeed.

  REP. ROY BLUNT (R), Minority Whip: Clearly, no one would expect us to pursue a plan that wasn't working, and so that September time frame is one that's important. And we've been talking about it as an important time frame, as has the president and General Petraeus.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  This political drama is playing out as the two parties continue to debate what conditions, if any, should be attached to the revised version of a $124 billion war funding bill that President Bush vetoed last week.

  The money is needed to fund military operations through October. And in an effort to get it to the president's desk by Memorial Day, Democrats have agreed to remove the president's major objection: a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

  But that has brought an angry response from MoveOn.org's Tom Matzzie, who represents three million active members. He said, if Democrats passed a bill without a timeline and with all five months of funding, MoveOn will move to a position of opposition.

  It is unclear whether Democratic leaders consider the threat. But today they announced that their next bill would provide just a third of the funding the president originally requested and for only two months, through July. The remaining funding would be released in August, if the Bush administration is able to report that the Iraqi government has made sufficient political progress.

  Illinois Democrat Rahm Emanuel.

  REP. RAHM EMANUEL (D), Illinois: … there will constantly be a relationship between the resources and the new policy.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  House Republicans, as they have for weeks, today argued for a funding bill with no contingencies. And Florida's Adam Putnam scoffed at the Democrats' monthly funding proposal.

  REP. ADAM PUTNAM (R), Florida: We do not fund wars incrementally 60 days at a time.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  The House plan now is scheduled for a vote on Thursday. And assuming Democrats maintain the majorities they have had in several previous war votes, the plan should pass. But it could be dead on arrival in the Senate, where the Democrats, with just a one-seat majority, might need several Republican votes to pass the measure.

  Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Democrats should not count on it.

  SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), Senate Minority Leader: I think I'm safe in saying there is minimal to no enthusiasm among Republican senators for that proposal.