House of Representatives to Debate Iraq War

The Hill reports that because of Republican defections, the House will be forced to debate a resolution on the Iraq War:

House will debate Iraq
By Alexander Bolton

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told Republican colleagues yesterday that they will have a full and lengthy floor debate on the Iraq war, a dramatic change of course for GOP leaders who had previously resisted Republican and Democratic calls for such a debate.

Four House Republicans have signed a Democratic-sponsored discharge petition that would begin 17 hours of debate over Iraq on the House floor. The Republicans signed on because GOP leaders had ignored their requests for a debate, said Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), one of the four mavericks.

Boehner told colleagues about his plan for debate on Iraq yesterday morning during a closed-door meeting of the Republican Conference that was mostly devoted to discussing soaring gas prices. Boehner’s remarks, which were unexpected, caused a hush to fall over the audience, said Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-Md.), who attended the meeting and is one of the four GOP signatories to the Democratic discharge petition.

In an interview, Jones confirmed that Boehner promised a “lengthy debate on Iraq” during yesterday’s meeting.

House Republicans have clearly been trying to avoid this debate, and that's no surprise. Elected officials are primadonnas, and they don't want to be put on the record defending the President's policies. Plus, Republicans as well as Democrats will have to work hard to come up with a statement of what they believe about Iraq.

But that said, I think this is more positive than it is negative. Right now Congressional Democrats are having a lot of fun criticizing the President for every aspect of the Iraq action; this would force them to actually say what they favor and what they oppose.

In fact, reading the resolutions that Democrats have introduced is very instructive. Neil Abercrombie's resolution (which was introduced last June) includes the following findings:

(9) The armed forces of Iraq number more than 76,000 troops as of June 8, 2005, and are growing in number and capability daily.

(10) The forces of the Iraqi Interior Ministry number more than 92,000 personnel as of June 8, 2005, and are growing in number and capability daily.

(11) The United States has in place a timetable for training, equipping, and employing Iraqi security forces to take over the counterinsurgency mission from coalition forces.

Did you know that Neil Abercrombie and 66 of his colleagues are so upbeat about Iraq? Anyway, Abercrombie also wants to make sure that the President:

[takes] all necessary steps to ensure the completion of Iraq's political transition to a constitutionally elected government by December 31, 2005, as called for in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546 (2004), which was supported by the United States.

Had you realized how supportive of the President Neil Abercrombie is? And he is one of the most liberal members of the House. (Of course, that's not saying much, because House Democrats are so far to the left that half of them qualify as 'among the most liberal').

The only major difference between the Abercrombie position and the White House is this:

to initiate such a withdrawal as soon as possible but not later than October 1, 2006.

Abercrombie wants us to tell the insurgents when we're leaving.

John Murtha has another of the Democrats' resolutions on Iraq. It says:

SECTION 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

SEC. 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines shall be deployed in the region.

SEC. 3. The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.

This is currently the main Democratic alternative to whatever Republicans come up with. And if I were they, I would not lead with it.

In the House, there is a longstanding tradition of trying to show up the other side through resolutions like this. However, the language is typically so broad that the other side - if they are sensible - will realize that they can simply vote 'yes.' Eg, all House Democrats voted for the vague, feel-good resolution that House Republicans advanced to embarrass Cynthia McKinney after she punched a cop (oops! - allegedly punched a cop, right?)

Anyway, House Republicans are going to be able to draft a resolution that looks a lot like this one. And if Democrats insist on the language 'terminating the deployment,' they can fairly be characterized as wanting to cut and run. Even they realize that's not a winning position - as they showed when they voted 187-3 against a resolution to terminate the deployment in Iraq, last November.

Now that's just my idea off the top of my head. The House leadership will have more time to craft a resolution that makes things difficult for the Democrats, and they will also schedule it for a vote at the most politically advantageous time.

This is likely to wind up a debate full of sound and fury, signifying... very little.

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