Congress votes for Bush to bring Iraq troops home

A SHARPLY divided US House of Representatives voted yesterday to order President George W Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq next year — a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress’ boldest challenge yet to the administration’s policy.

Ignoring a White House veto threat, lawmakers voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a binding war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September 2008, or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s deputy prime minister Salam al-Zubaie was gravely injured yesterday in a suicide bombing at a mosque in the courtyard of his home.

It came after a statement purportedly by an al-Qaida umbrella group singled out the Sunni deputy prime minister as a stooge “to the crusader occupiers”. The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party said al-Zubaie was in a “serious condition” in intensive care after shrapnel had penetrated his chest.

After the Congress vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “The American people have lost faith in the president’s conduct of this war. The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not.”

The vote, echoing clashes between lawmakers and the White House over the Vietnam War four decades ago, pushed the Democratic-led Congress a step closer to a constitutional collision with the wartime commander-in- chief. Bush has insisted that lawmakers allow more time for his strategy of sending nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to work.

The roll call also marked a triumph for Pelosi, who laboured in recent days to bring together a Democratic caucus deeply divided over the war. Some of the party’s more liberal members voted against the bill because they said it would not end the war immediately, while conservative Democrats said they were reluctant to take away flexibility from generals in the field.

Republicans were almost completely unified in their fight against the bill, which they said was tantamount to admitting failure in Iraq.

“The stakes in Iraq are too high and the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families too great to be content with anything but success,” said Republican whip Roy Blunt.

Voting for the bill were 216 Democrats and two Republicans — Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland and Walter Jones of North Carolina. Of the 212 members who opposed the bill, 198 were Republicans and 14 were Democrats.

The bill is the first time Congress has used its budget power to try to end the war by attaching withdrawal requirements to a bill providing $124 billion (€93.3bn) to finance military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this year. More than 3,200 US troops have died in Iraq since war began in March 2003.

Across the Capitol, the Senate planned to debate as early as Monday legislation that also calls for a troop withdrawal — and has also drawn a Bush veto threat.

But the Democrats still face long odds of ultimately being able to force a troop withdrawal. In the Senate, Democrats need 60 votes to prevail, a tall order as they will need about a dozen Republicans to join them.

If lawmakers send Bush a compromise House-Senate measure, both chambers would need two-thirds majorities to override him — margins that neither seems likely to be able to muster.