Democrats sidestep issue of funding for Iraq War

Senior Congressional Democrats are brushing off questions about cutting off funding for the Iraq War, and indicate they will do little to forcefully stop President Bush from sending 21,500 additional US troops to Iraq. On Jan. 31, after returning from a trip to Iraq, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sidestepped questions over whether she would try to scuttle Bush's plan to increase the number of US troops in Iraq, calling it "the one last chance" that the US war in Iraq will "succeed." Likewise, Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid of Nevada said he would focus his energies on passing a bipartisan, symbolic resolution opposing the so-called "surge"–a move Bush has already said he would ignore. One non-binding measure that appears to be gaining traction is sponsored by a Republican, John Warner of Virginia, and asserts that while Congress "disagrees with the 'plan' to augment" US troops, legislators should not cut off or reduce funding for the military presence in Iraq. "Two years ago, it seemed pretty lonely. Now every politician wants to be seen on television saying something bad about President Bush's handling of the war," Dr. Rusti Eisenstadt, an activist and professor of US history at Hofstra University, told IPS. "The key now is to get [Congress] to do something instead of hiding behind non-binding resolutions." Activists are setting their sights on the administration's 2008 budget request submitted to Congress on Feb. 5, which is seeking $93.4 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Peace groups would like to see Congress vote against that measure, a move they see as more important than any progressive piece of legislation introduced in Congress this year. "We are looking at a lot of things that are happening in the Congress right now, from a Senate resolution that opposes an escalation [sending more troops to Iraq] but will allow a war to continue, to other bills out there that talk about bringing the troops home and de-funding the war, but which George Bush can veto," said Nancy Lessing of the group Military Families Speak Out. "The one thing that we see that can end this war is if Congress votes no money on the appropriation that's going to come before them," she added. "The bottom line is that we want the troops to come home and we need it to be defunded. All the other stuff is just a game," added Michael McPherson, executive director of Veterans for Peace. Previous votes have been extremely lopsided, with the vast majority of the House and almost every member of the Senate supporting continued funding. Already, Congress has approved more than $380 billion for the war in Iraq, according to a report from the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, a non-profit think tank specializing in social justice issues. The Institute says if that money had not been spent on the war, it could have been used to build 2.9 million units of affordable housing in the United States or paid for 62 million scholarships to university students.