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A stopgap bill to fund the war in Iraq moved Wednesday toward Senate passage, though it faces a likely veto by US President George W. Bush, who rejects its deadline for withdrawing US troops.
The Senate was to vote by Thursday on a war spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, which set a March 31, 2008 goal for withdrawing US forces from Iraq. Democrats on Tuesday thwarted Republican efforts to remove the timeline from the legislation.
Bush Wednesday reiterated his pledge to veto the legislation if it crosses his desk, in order to avoid “disastrous” consequences.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at a press conference later in the day, said the time had come for the US president and the Democratic leaders of Congress to compromise.
“Let us sit down together to do what is right for the American people, to address the war in Iraq, so that we can bring it to an end and bring our troops home safely and soon,” she said.
“The toll that it's taking in lives and limbs, the toll that it's taking on us, the strength of our security, the toll it is taking financially and in our reputation in the world is one that is too great.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refuted assertions by Bush and his Republican allies that a recent “surge” of thousands of additional US troops had helped quell sectarian violence in Iraq.
“The idea that the surge is working and that it needs more time is a fantasy,” Reid said on the Senate floor.
“What we see today in Iraq is more of the same — the same violence, the same chaos, the same loss of life we've seen over the past four-plus years.”
Reid and Pelosi also sent Bush a letter Wednesday, warning that his insistence that he will veto the bill will “needlessly delay funding for our troops.”
Senate Republicans could have blocked Tuesday's vote by using the parliamentary stalling tactic called a “filibuster,” as they did with a vote earlier this month on a non-binding resolution criticizing the president's troop buildup.
But minority leader Mitch McConnell said he decided it would be far more expeditious to let the bill pass, then allow the president to veto it, adding that his goal is to “get through the process as rapidly as possible.”
The draft Senate legislation would impose a binding requirement for troop withdrawal to begin 120 days after passage, with a goal of removing all but a token force in Iraq by March 31, 2008.
Bush said any such measure would play straight into the hands of enemy.
“The consequences of imposing such a specific and random date for withdrawal would be disastrous,” Bush said. “Our enemies in Iraq would simply have to mark their calendars.
“Some Democrats believe that by delaying funding for our troops, they can force me to accept restrictions on our commanders that I believe would make withdrawal and defeat more likely. That's not going to happen,” the president said.
The House of Representatives last week passed its own 124-billion-dollar version of the emergency spending bill with a deadline to get troops out of Iraq by August 31, 2008.
But the measures on early troop withdrawal squeaked by in both chambers by razor-thin margins, and Democrats conceded that they were unlikely to muster the two-thirds vote to override a presidential veto.
Meanwhile, one of Congress's most ardent opponents of timelines repeated his assertion Wednesday that an early US troop withdrawal from Iraq was a bad idea.
“The area will deteriorate into chaos and we will see them follow us home,” said Republican Senator John McCain, speaking on US television.
“I think 50 of my colleagues made a very bad decision yesterday. And I believe that there's no doubt that the president, who is the commander-in-chief … will prevail,” said McCain, contender for his party's presidential nomination.
