A Divided House Rebukes Bush on Iraq
By JEFF ZELENY and MICHAEL LUO
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 — A sharply divided House of Representatives passed a resolution on Friday formally repudiating President Bush’s decision to send more than 20,000 new combat troops to Iraq.
The rare wartime rebuke to the commander in chief — an act that is not binding, but that carries symbolic significance — was approved 246-to-182, with 17 Republicans breaking ranks to join all but two Democrats in supporting the resolution.
Passage was never in doubt, but the debate, lasting full days and much of three nights, brought nearly every member to the floor to declare, briefly but often vehemently, where they stood on a short, resolution affirming support for the troops but denouncing Mr. Bush’s new approach to the war.
“We owe our troops a course of action in Iraq that is worthy of their sacrifice,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. “Today, we set the stage for a new direction in Iraq.”
With 392 members speaking, the debate lasted twice as long as when Congress voted in 2002 to authorize the use of force against Iraq.
And it illustrated how the partisan divide over the war has deepened. While Democratic leaders had purposefully written the resolution to attract a bipartisan following, the number of Republicans who joined them was only about half of what some Democrats had predicted.
“Republicans may have lost the vote on this nonbinding resolution,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader. “But we won the debate.”
The Senate is expected to consider Saturday whether to move toward a vote on an Iraq resolution, but there, enough Republicans are expected to hold ranks to block the Democrats’ approach, at least for now. In political terms, the resolution carries weight because of public sentiment, particularly from voters who placed Democrats in control of Congress.
Several historians compared its significance to the repeal by Congress in 1971 of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing the Vietnam War. That vote did not halt the conflict as members of Congress approved continued financing for two more years.
The House resolution stood out, historians said, because it criticized a specific battlefield tactic proposed by the president. It also could set the stage for a more consequential clash with the White House if Congress begins exercising broader power and authority in an effort to bring the war to a close, possibly by restricting financing.
“Never before in our history has Congress attempted to control or restrict strategic battlefield decisions,” Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, said. “It is wrong as a matter of policy and it will come back to haunt us for years to come.”
The deliberations represented the third major Iraq debate in four years, but with Democrats controlling Congress, the rules, tone and outcome changed. Republicans were not allowed to offer their own alternative proposal, but they forcefully defended the president and his policy.
Now, questions of financing the conflict loom large for Democrats in Congress. The White House and Republicans pre-emptively accused the party of starting along a path to cut financing for the troops, a suggestion Democratic leaders denied. But some of their rank and file are pressing for exactly that.
On Friday afternoon, as the debate neared an end, people seated in the gallery applauded when Ms. Pelosi praised the fortitude of American forces. Lawmakers and spectators rose as she called for a moment of silence to honor the more than 3,100 United States troops who have died in Iraq since the conflict began.
The resolution specifically stated Congress’s disapproval of the president’s plan to deploy more than 20,000 troops to Iraq, which Mr. Bush outlined in a speech on Jan. 10. But through more than 45 hours of deliberations, the debate grew far beyond the context of the resolution.
The arguments grew familiar as the hours marched past, with lawmaker after lawmaker rising to address what was typically a nearly empty chamber. Democrats argued that Americans should not referee a civil war, that previous efforts to pour more troops into Iraq had failed and that diplomatic measures were the only way out of the crisis.
Republicans, meanwhile, sought to portray the war in Iraq as a key battleground in a titanic global struggle against militant Islam and criticized the resolution as a slap in the face for troops on the battlefield. Failure in Iraq, they said, would lead to widespread instability in the region.
“What we’re doing with this resolution is not a salute to G.I. Joe,” said Representative Phil Gingrey, a Georgia Republican. “It’s a capitulation to Jihadist Joe.”
The White House, reacting to the vote, turned its attention to what many assume will be the next fight: the president’s spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The president,” Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said, “believes that the Congress should provide the full funding and flexibility our armed forces need to succeed in their mission to protect our country.”
Even before the House voted at midafternoon, senators had already started to speak about the resolution in their chamber. The Senate has been locked in a stalemate over Iraq for two weeks, but Democratic leaders are seeking to put Republicans on the record during a brief Saturday session.
Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the chairman of the Republican Conference, dismissed the significance of the weekend vote, which is on a procedural question, and announced that he and Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, were flying to Baghdad instead. Two Democrats scheduled to take the trip canceled.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, planned to miss the vote to campaign in Iowa. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton planned to break away from campaigning in New Hampshire to vote.
Iraq has dominated this session of Congress. While Democrats are broadly aligned against the war, there is little unity on the next step. Some lawmakers seek to cut financing and cap troop levels while others propose delving into war strategy.
“There is a long tradition of Congressional dissent during wartime, but I don’t know that it’s ever formalized itself the way this is shaping up,” said the associate Senate historian, Donald Ritchie. “Taking a stand in opposition to a commander in chief’s decision on a war policy, that’s unusual.”
After the vote, Democratic leaders painted their victory as an expression of public outrage at the war and a sign that the new Congress intends to challenge the president. “It’s the first time he has had a review of his policy, rather than a rubber stamp,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the Democratic Caucus.
Representative Boehner, the Republican leader, said the Iraq debate highlighted the intentions by Democrats to begin reducing financing of the war, which he described as “a slow-bleed policy that cuts off funding and reinforcements for our troops in harm’s way.”
Representative John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who oversees defense appropriations, has said he would seek to block new deployments by requiring troops to meet a series of conditions and training guidelines. A day before the vote, he presented his plan in a 24-minute broadcast on MoveCongress.org, a Web site dedicated to ending the war.
Democratic lawmakers and senior aides said they believed Mr. Murtha’s appearance could have kept some Republicans from supporting the resolution, fearful of being linked to the antiwar coalition.
But for all the attention paid to the symbolic resolution, it remains an open question whether it will have much immediate effect.
“It is very hard to change war policy from Capitol Hill,” said Representative David R. Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat and chairman of the Appropriations Committee. “We won’t have a real solution on Iraq until Republicans walk down to the White House and say, Mr. President, the jig is up, this is a bad direction and you need to rethink what you’re doing.”
