House Opens Debate Over War Funding, Troop Withdrawal

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• KWAME HOLMAN:

  On the eve of the highest-profile vote of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's three-month tenure, it was still unclear whether she would secure passage of a $124 billion spending bill that ties funding for the Iraq war to the withdrawal of troops.

  REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D-OH), Presidential Candidate: It is time to end the war.

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  Some of the most staunchly anti-war members among the Democrats have said they will vote against anything that continues military operations in Iraq.

  Party leaders hoped the bill's language requiring all combat troops be withdrawn by September 2008 at the latest would sway the dissenters.

  But it hasn't swayed Georgia Democrat John Lewis, himself one of the leadership's vote-counters.

  REP. JOHN LEWIS (D), Georgia: I am not prepared to vote for another dollar, another dime to support this war. It is time to bring our young men and our young women home.

  KWAME HOLMAN But Democratic leaders point out that their bill would bring home troops even sooner, if the Iraqi government fails to meet certain political and security benchmarks outlined by President Bush in January.

  REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD), Majority Leader: And, if there are no consequences for them not meeting them, the probability of them being accomplished are very small.

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  But deadlines that could lead to troop withdrawal have prompted some moderate and conservative Democrats to oppose the bill, fearing they could compromise the military's ability to make decisions.

  That's a viewpoint shared by almost all 201 Republicans, who appear united against the bill.

  REP. MIKE PENCE (R), Indiana: Congress may declare war. Congress may choose to fund or choose not to fund war. But Congress may not conduct war.

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  Faced with such a potentially tight vote and only a 32-seat majority, Democratic leaders added to the bill $24 billion in additional spending, including nearly $4 billion worth of agriculture relief, much of it directed at farm state Democrats.

  Illinois Republican Mark Kirk accused Democrats of trying to buy votes with fiscally irresponsible pork-barrel projects.

  REP. MARK KIRK (R), Illinois: It would provide $25 million in a bailout for spinach farmers, another $74 million in taxpayer dollars for peanut storage, and $283 million for milk producers. All of this spending is designated under the bill as emergency wartime supplemental appropriations.

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  Democrats, however, focused on their claim that the time had come to put restrictions on President Bush's Iraq policy.

  REP. PETER DEFAZIO (D), Oregon: This is the first enforceable challenge to the president's plan to escalate and continue a stay-the-course, open-ended commitment to a war, a war that was launched with massive deception, an unnecessary war.

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  With 218 votes needed for passage, Democrats can only afford to lose only 15 of their own members. Leaders are leaning on their freshmen, such as Georgia's Hank Johnson, who, this afternoon, remained publicly undecided. He said his constituents want to bring the troops home, but that that's not so easy to do.

  REP. HANK JOHNSON (D), Georgia: Well, I think the people of the 4th District, by and large, are ready for this war to come to end; and they want to see a cessation of deaths of United States soldiers in combat on the streets of the Iraq. And they want to see that happen now.

  And, politically, the reality is that you just can't yank the troops off the streets. You just can't leave them without the funding that they need in order to wind this process down.

• KWAME HOLMAN:

  If the bill does pass the House, and next week the Senate, it still faces the threat of a presidential veto, even though the Pentagon reportedly is desperately in need of the troop funding.