House passes troop pull-out bill, Bush to block

March 23, 2007

Washington, D.C. - The House of Representatives passed legislation that would set Sept. 1, 2008, as the deadline for pulling all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq.

President Bush, who has already said he would veto the bill, was scheduled to make a statement at 1:45 p.m. ET.

The measure also is unlikely to pass the Senate.

Before the 218-212 vote, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that Democrats had the numbers to pass the bill.

To get the votes, the leadership had to win over anti-war Democrats who felt that the measure didn't go far enough.

But some of the war's most liberal critics said they weren't buying it.

"Four years ago we were told we had no alternative but to go to war. Now we're told we have no alternative but to continue to war for another year or two," Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said. "The fact of the matter is we do have alternatives."

Kucinich said, "Congress has the power to stop funding the war. That's what we should do. That's what we should have done and that's what I'm going to continue to work toward. We have to get out of Iraq, period."

However, Rep. James McGovern, an anti-war Democrat from Massachusetts who had been on the fence, said he would vote yes.

"I have come to the conclusion that defeating the supplemental bill before us today would send a message to George Bush and Dick Cheney that they will continue to have a free pass from this Congress to do whatever the hell they want to do," McGovern said during Thursday's floor debate on the measure.

McGovern's not the only one. Rep. Elijah Cummings, an anti-war Democrat from Maryland who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said he's been getting mixed signals from constituents.

But Cummings said he was ready to vote yes, insisting that Democratic leaders have not twisted his arm.

"A vote against the supplemental would cause us to have a stripped-down bill, and there would be no voice saying, 'Mr. Bush, stop this war immediately.' "

To help get reluctant lawmakers on board, Democrats added "sweeteners" to the $124 billion emergency supplemental spending bill.

The legislation includes some $21 billion to pay for items not in Bush's original request to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including $25 million to bail out spinach growers in California hurt by last year's E. coli outbreak.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Thursday the House bill "has zero chance of being enacted into law."

"It's bad legislation; the president's going to veto it, and Congress will sustain that veto," he said.

On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a version of the supplemental bill that calls for combat troops to be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. Republicans say they'll fight to strip out the deadline provisions when the bill reaches the floor next week.

Last week, Senate Democrats fell short, on a 50-48 vote, in another attempt to impose a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.

Once both the House and Senate versions are approved by their respective bodies, a conference committee will hammer out the differences.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for Congress to pass the bill quickly, or the military would be forced to take severe stopgap measures because of a lack of funding.

Among those measures, Gates said, would be slowing deployment of replacement troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and extending the tours of units already there.

"This kind of disruption to key programs will have a genuinely adverse effect on the readiness of the Army and the quality of life for soldiers and their families," Gates said. "I urge the Congress to pass the supplemental as soon as possible."

Snow also called for quick action.

"The clock is ticking," he said. "Money is going to run out for our forces in Iraq sometime next month."

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