"Democrats Try to Increase Leverage Over Iraq Policy"

NY Times:

Representative Steny H. Hoyer, the House majority leader, said Friday that Congress might consider legislation revising the authorization it gave President Bush in 2002 to use military force in Iraq.

Mr. Hoyer set out a road map for the House to exercise more control over Iraq strategy, as he and other Democratic leaders continued on Friday to exert pressure against the president’s plan to send in an additional 21,500 troops.

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, moved on Friday to force a debate on a resolution opposing the troop increase that had been offered by Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska.

But Mr. Reid said that he also expected debate on other similar resolutions. forces “are ready” to assume responsibility for the country’s security.Ultimately, he said, he expects the Senate to come together behind one resolution when the debate begins the week after next, with broad bipartisan opposition to the president’s plan.

Public opinion, he predicted, will compel many Republicans to support a resolution opposing the troop increase.

“Twenty-one Republicans are up for re-election this time,” Mr. Reid said. “If they think this is going to be a soft vote for them, they’ve got another think coming.”

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned Congress against passing any such resolution, saying it “emboldens the enemy and our adversaries.”

“I’m sure that’s not the intent behind the resolutions,” he said, “but I think it may be the effect.”

President Bush told reporters on Friday that he had proposed the increase “in that I’m the decision maker, and I had to come up with a way forward that precluded disaster.”

“I’ve listened a lot to members of Congress,” he added, speaking at a meeting at the White House with Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, whom the Senate confirmed Friday as the new commander in Iraq. “I’ve listened carefully to their suggestions. I have picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed, because I understand, like many in Congress understand, success is very important for the security of the country.”

In a speech to the Brookings Institution, Mr. Hoyer predicted that the House would follow the Senate’s lead in backing a resolution against the troop increase, with broad support from Republicans.

Several committees in the House would then convene hearings on the war, he said. To follow that, the House might try to exercise more control over Iraq strategy in legislation regarding spending for the Defense or State Department. Another option, he said, would be a revised authorization for the use of military force in Iraq “that more accurately reflects the mission of our troops on the ground.”

Some Republicans as well as Democrats have said that the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, passed in October 2002, was not intended to allow American troops to police a civil war, as some lawmakers now say is the case.

Mr. Hoyer said in his speech that he would not have supported the resolution allowing the president to go to war “had I known then what I know now: that the United States of America could and would prosecute a war and manage a nation-building effort in such an incompetent, arrogant, unplanned and unsuccessful manner.”

Mr. Hoyer also called for requiring the president to certify to Congress that the government of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was meeting the benchmarks Mr. Bush said he had set. He also called for greater international involvement in securing Iraq, and peace talks like the ones held in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995 that ended the Bosnian war.

“The president’s so-called new strategy is really little more than stay the course,” Mr. Hoyer said, adding that it “places far more confidence in the leadership of Prime Minister Maliki than his record of competence and cooperation merits.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a surprise visit to Baghdad on Friday with other members of Congress, including the chairmen of the armed services, foreign affairs, and intelligence committees, as well as Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a leading Democratic critic of the war.

In a statement after her visit, Ms. Pelosi said that she had traveled to Iraq to thank the troops and to express support for them, “as well as our hope that they will come home safely and soon.”

In meetings with the prime minister and other senior American and Iraqi officials, the statement said, “we stressed our belief that it is well past time for the Iraqis to take primary responsibility for the security of their nation.” American forces, Ms. Pelosi said, “should quickly begin to transition from a combat role to one focused on training, counterterrorism, force protection and controlling Iraq’s borders.”

Mr. Maliki’s office released a statement after the meeting saying that the prime minister had “confirmed the resolution of the Iraqi government to challenge the terrorist groups with the full power” of its military force and the political system.

The prime minister also emphasized that Iraqi forces “are ready” to assume responsibility for the country’s security.

Howie P.S.: I don't think I've seen too many stories that start out with a phrase like "might consider legislation."