House committee OKs troop withdrawal bill

WASHINGTON-The House Appropriations Committee approved on Thursday a $124 billion war spending bill that calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraq by September 2008, but in the Senate, Democrats fell 12 votes short of the 60 needed to call for a troop redeployment within a year.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., offered the resolution to call for the troops to come home, and promised to return to the issue when the Senate debates funding measures later in the year.

“I don’t think we should spill another drop of American blood in Iraq,” he said at the end of a four-hour Senate debate, which concluded with only 48 senators voting for the resolution, while 50 voted against it.

Forty-six Democrats backed the resolution, joined by Republican Gordon Smith of Oregon and independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Voting against it were 47 Republicans, joined by Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, along with independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.

Absent and not voting were Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the only one of six senators running for president to miss the vote, and Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who is recovering from an illness.

“My vote against this rapid withdrawal does not mean that I support an open-ended commitment of U.S. troops to Iraq,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

“I opposed this particular measure because it sets an arbitrary ‘date certain’ for withdrawal of our troops, which presents the terrorists and the insurgents the opportunity to target and jeopardize the security of those troops that remain,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.

On the House side, the Appropriations Committee vote was 36-28, mostly along party lines. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., voted against the proposal. Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against a bill on Sept. 15, 2001, authorizing President Bush to use “all necessary and appropriate force” to retaliate for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, has said she thinks troops should be withdrawn before the end of the year.

Earlier, Democrats on the committee beat back an attempt by Republicans to strip from the bill any timetables for withdrawal.

On a 37-27 vote, the committee protected a provision in the bill that would trigger a redeployment of U.S. troops within 18 months or even sooner if Iraq does not measure up to benchmarks for progress – including a militia disarmament program and an equitable oil revenue-sharing.

Republicans, led by Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., charged Democrats with attempting to micromanage the war and tried to eliminate the 2008 deadline and insert a promise not to cut funding for troops already on the ground.

“Either you’re going to provide for our troops or you’re not,” said Lewis, the committee’s top Republican.

Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., countered: “We are trying to end the authorization of the war if the Iraqis and the administration don’t perform.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., cobbled together the Iraq spending proposal after negotiations with the Progressive Caucus – which wants U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq immediately – and more moderate lawmakers, who voiced concerns about undercutting U.S. troops in the middle of a war.