According to the WSJ (subscription only), the new chairman of the House Appropriations committee is hoping to stymie the President’s plan to surge forces to Iraq in support of stabilizing the capital and restive al Anbar to the west:
With President Bush seeking more U.S. forces in Iraq, a House Democratic chairman outlined options that would restrict any troop surge if it meant depleting readiness at home or extending the tours of troops now in the war zone.
The strategy laid out by Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.) is the clearest statement yet on how House Democrats may respond to anticipated White House proposals to add 20,000 troops and pump new money into economic programs to help Iraqi civilians.
Mr. Bush will address the nation tomorrow on Iraq, and the Pentagon is preparing to add four brigades plus support personnel in the coming months. In the same period, Congress will be considering an emergency bill to pay for continuing overseas military operations, and the restrictions could be added prior to enactment in late March and before the White House has deployed all the added brigades overseas.
Mr. Bush is sure to claim wide discretion as commander in chief under the Constitution; most Democrats want to avoid what they see as a fruitless and politically damaging fight to deny money for the war. “We’re not about to cut off funding for troops,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D., Mo.) said.
But Mr. Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, believes the November election results show voters want Congress to be more of a check on Mr. Bush’s handling of Iraq. His goal is to build bipartisan support by focusing the debate on whether increasing troop levels would be too much of a strain on the military.
After complaining for over a year now that the administration’s strategy needed to be changed, Mr. Murtha is trying to shape the way the strategy is changed in the favor of his own personal preference: Bring the troops back home.
This will of course result in the surrender of the field of battle to the enemy, but that doesn’t matter much to Mr. Murtha: Although he has been used as political tool by his party’s leadership to fashion a winning coalition from the disparate constituencies of committed anti-war activists, power hungry partisans and an increasingly demoralized center, I believe that his personal motivations are more sincere – he honestly believes that the war in Iraq is lost and that surging more troops would only mean throwing good money – and lives – after bad.
I don’t agree with him personally, but that doesn’t matter much. What does matter is that the constitutionally empowered commander-in-chief of the armed forces evidently doesn’t agree with him and wants to send more troops.
If Mr. Murtha is in fact committed to crossing swords with a President whose Article II Constitutional powers are augmented by a still-operant congressional Authorization on the Use of Military Force, he runs a terrible risk for his party: There’s very little apparent difference between the politically suicidal path of cutting funding for troops actually in the field – which was never done even in the long national nightmare that was Vietnam – and denying them the necessary resources to augment their strength in support of a new and at least potentially successful strategy. Which result is, after all, what so many newly elected congressmen winningly campaigned on.
Those who have used Mr. Murtha as an anti-war foil also run risks: They are either right, or the President is on the odds of a positive outcome in Iraq. If the President’s opponents are right, then 20,000 troops more or less won’t make a difference and the presidency is theirs for the taking in 2008. But if they are wrong, or worse, if their political opponents can make a claim – however rebuttable – that a Democratically-controlled congress has once again lost the country a war, Murtha’s principled opposition may well seem in retrospect to have been an expensive indulgence.
Update: Might as well read Rich Lowry.
Run for the hills! I agree- this tack by the Dems makes no sense to me.
What I truly do not understand is the feeling that the public will support them on this-they won’t because it will be portrayed as touching indivdual soldiers-which is political suicide because the American people will not stand for anything that touches individual Soldiers.
Plus in the end, it is futile. The President still gets to call the shots here.
What would make more sense would be to nibble away at the edges. With sharp teeth. Leave the troop increase alone and co-opt the theme of sacrifice.
Here is an example: DOD will submit its budget in a couple of months. It is sure to have a pay raise in it that will be far less than what is required in terms of the pay gap. The Dems could lead the charge to vote a 5% pay raise, which if passed they could point out that it was their idea and if it caused the President to veto it , well it would have been his fault for not supporting the troops that he is asking to sacrifice.
Nobody hates the war in Iraq more than I do. However making all this noise about cutting funds for the war is sheer lunancy. If I can see that-why can’t they?
Skippy-san,
“…if I can see that-why can’t they?”
Probably because you are not blinded by, nor strapped to an agenda.
Could also be because you actually don’t loathe, look down on, or feel indifferent to the military as people or concept.
Or also could be because you care more about what happens to the country as a whole than what happens to President Bush as an individual.
IMHO Hizzoner should be the exception to the “Once a Marine, always a Marine” saw.