WASHINGTON, Feb. 23, 2007
White House Will Fight For War Powers
Bush Will Stand His Ground If Democrats Try To Revoke 2002 Authorization
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Play CBS Video Video Democrats Try A New Strategy The Democrats failed to pass a non-binding resolution opposing the war in Iraq, so they're trying a new strategy forcing President Bush to change the way the war is being fought. Jim Axelrod reports.
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Video '08 Hopefuls Focus On Iraq As U.S. troops attempt to contain insurgent violence in Iraq, debate over the war has become a hot topic for potential candidates in the '08 presidential race. Tracie Strahan reports.
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Video New Terrorism Tactics In Iraq The U.S. military warns that insurgents are resorting to new tactics in their campaign. The latest rebel attacks utilized dirty bombs to spread poisonous gas. Susan Roberts reports.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to present the proposal limiting the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq to fellow Democrats early next week. (CBS)
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The White House said Democrats were in a state of confusion about Iraq. (AP / CBS)
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Who's Who Congress Reacts To Plan Reaction to President Bush's new Iraq stategy, which includes an increase in troops.
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Interactive American Heroes Profiles of U.S. soldiers who've died in Iraq, a look at the war's toll and pictures of mourning.
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Interactive New Plan For Iraq Key elements of the plan, excerpts from the president's speech, reaction and more.
The Bush administration argued that changes in the resolution were unnecessary even though it was drafted in the days when Saddam Hussein was in power and there was an assumption — later proved false — that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The White House said Democrats were in a state of confusion about Iraq.
"There's a lot of ... shifting sands in the Democrats' position right now," deputy White House press secretary Tony Fratto said. "It's hard to say exactly what their position is."
Earlier in the day, the same White House spokesperson had said that any effort by Congress to revoke the president's authority to wage war in Iraq was hypothetical, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller, but as the day progressed, so did the message.
Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said of the White House, "They can spin all they want, but the fact is that President Bush is ignoring a bipartisan majority of Congress, his own military commanders and the American public in escalating the war.
"The American people have demanded a change of course in Iraq and Democrats are committed to holding President Bush accountable," Manley said.
Democrats want a narrower mission, reports CBS White House correspondent Jim Axelrod: denying terrorists a safe haven in Iraq and training Iraqi troops to secure their country. The Democrats say that would require fewer U.S. troops, and drawdown of troops could start early next year.
Democrats such as Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the Iraq Study Group, say this is the best chance for their party to oppose the war but avoid divisive arguments on supporting the troops.
"There are very formidable challenges in keeping the Democrats together on this," he said. "Anything that suggests you're undercutting the troops will not come close to getting majority."
But Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican minority leader, dismissed the Democrats' effort as a "Goldilocks solution, one that is hot enough for the radical left wing but cool enough for the party leaders who claim that they are for the troops." He said he would press for a Senate vote on a resolution committing to funding the troops.
The White House spokesman said Congress does have the power of the purse to control U.S. troops in Iraq, Knoller reports, but the president has all the constitutional authority he needs as commander in chief to determine strategy.
Axelrod reports that the president's aides argue that Congress authorized the president to send troops to Iraq in 2002 to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions. Since those resolutions are still in force, they say no new authorization is needed.
The wording of the Democrats' measure remains unsettled. One version would restrict American troops in Iraq to fighting the al Qaeda terrorist network, training Iraqi Army and police forces, maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity and otherwise proceeding with the withdrawal of combat forces.
Reid intends to present the proposal to fellow Democrats next week, and he is expected to try to add the measure to anti-terrorism legislation. Officials who described the strategy spoke only on condition of anonymity, noting that rank-and-file senators had not yet been briefed on the details.
"These kinds of efforts have consequences," Fratto said at the White House on Friday. He said that pulling troops out of Baghdad would result in chaos.
Republicans recently thwarted two Democratic attempts to pass a nonbinding measure through the Senate that was critical of Mr. Bush's decision to deploy an additional 21,500 combat troops.
After failing on his second attempt last Saturday, Reid said he would turn his attention to passing binding legislation.
Any attempt to limit President Bush's powers as commander in chief probably would face strong opposition from Republican allies of the administration in the Senate. Additionally, it could also face a veto threat.
The issue marks a quickening of the challenge Democrats are mounting to Mr. Bush's war policies following November elections in which voters swept Republicans from power in both the House and Senate.
The emerging Senate plan differs markedly from an approach favored by critics of the war in the House of Representatives, where a nonbinding measure passed last week.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she expects the next challenge to the president's war policies to come in the form of legislation requiring the Defense Department to adhere to strict training and readiness standards for troops ticketed for the war zone.
Rep. John Murtha, the leading Democratic advocate of that approach, has said it would effectively deny Mr. Bush the ability to proceed with the troop buildup that has been partially implemented since he announced it in January.
Some Senate Democrats have been privately critical of that approach, saying it would have virtually no chance of passing and could easily backfire politically in the face of Republican arguments that it would deny reinforcements to troops already in the war zone.
Several Senate Democrats have called in recent days for revoking the original authorization that Bush sought and won from Congress in the months before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 222 CommentsNaw, you're all wrong, it's LieberWOMAN! He's a p.u.s.s.y.
Sorry, but you are such typical right-wing idiot to say that if Democrats were in power in 1941 we would be eating sushi and sauerkraut. Democrats WERE in power in 1941, and FDR was doing his best to convince an isolationist public (still feeling the trauma of WWI) to get involved in another "European War". It was the right wing sympathizers, like Lindberg and grand-daddy Bush that put up the most resistance to our WW II involvement.
And because BUSH LIED, does not mean that Pelosi and other LIED. They may have been suckered in by Bush LIES, like most of America, or they could have just been their typical spineless Democratic selves - too cowardly to question or speak out. (Though many Dems did, only to be ignored by the media - read Sen Byrds floor speeches pre-Invasion).
But the Dems (cowradly or complicit in the Lies by not speaking up) DID NOT produce the LIES. There is a big difference. It was Cheney and Rummy and their NeoCon gang from the PNAC outfit that were behind the manufactured deceit, exaggerations and out right LIES.
Can't you see the obvious? Is it too painfull? Are you being a good Nazi with all your fake patriotism? Are you just too stupid to realize you are a Bush Chump?
Wake up and FACE the FACTS. Just like my Republican family did, and who voted Dem for the first time in their lives in 2006.
no apologies for supporting Islamofascism, and for dissing the true Marines serving in Iraq.
Posted by Lieberman181 at 05:08 PM : Feb 24, 2007
No apologies necessary. I have never supported islamo-fascism nor dissed my brother Marines. Why SHOULD I apologize for that which I have not done?
SHOW ME WHERE I HAVE, LIEBERMAN. BACK UP YOUR STUFF, LITTLE MAN.
Let everyone see what you have to back it up.
Posted by scott4261 at 06:31 PM : Feb 24, 2007
You can't have a conversation with lieberman. But I love calling the little worm on his lies and making him run and hide as he can't deal with it as a man.
He yells lies from behind rocks like a little girl and I rub his nose in it.
Posted by Lieberman181 at 05:08 PM : Feb 24, 2007
No apologies necessary. I have never supported islamo-fascism nor dissed my brother Marines. Why SHOULD I apologize for that which I have not done?
SHOW ME WHERE I HAVE, LIEBERMAN. BACK UP YOUR STUFF, LITTLE MAN.
You won't. You'll go and hide like alittle girl.
Let everyone see what you have to back it up.
In sum, Congress played a very important role in building opposition to an unpopular and failed Cold War intervention. Legislators emerged as major voices of skepticism, criticism, and outright opposition to Vietnam. They checked the hawks in the administration who refused to believe the facts on the ground. Congress was ultimately pivotal to placing pressure on the Nixon administration
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12438
Thanks for proving my point to all that you are just a blowhard coward who has nothing going for him but third grade name calling.
You can't deal with the message so you pull your little character assisination number on the poster instead.
And when you get challenged, do you respond like a man and show your stuff? No, you go and hide like a little girl.
No wonder the reserves rejected your sorry a$$.
And you have the nerve to state that I'm the one who can't come to grips with your ****! What a joke....
You shoot your mouth off and then go hide in a corner when you get caught showing your a$$ in public.
Posted by Lieberman181 at 05:08 PM : Feb 24, 2007
Well little man?
SHOW ME WHERE I HAVE, LIEBERMAN. BACK UP YOUR STUFF.
Let everyone see what you have to back it up.
Posted by formrusmcsgt
Oh yeah, I forgot the part about no teeth!!! LOL
How do you picture Lieberman? I see him as a skinny little nerd with a comb-over sitting at a filthy keyboard in dirty underware eating day-old freedom fries.
Posted by dallison7 at 05:28 PM : Feb 24, 2007
I picture him as a shut-in with no teeth and his finger up his nose....probably gets his jollies torturing small animals.
Posted by Lieberman181 at 05:08 PM : Feb 24, 2007
No apologies necessary. I have never supported islamo-fascism nor dissed my brother Marines. Why SHOULD I apologize for that which I have not done?
SHOW ME WHERE I HAVE, LIEBERMAN. BACK UP YOUR STUFF, LITTLE MAN.
Let everyone see what you have to back it up.
How do you picture Lieberman? I see him as a skinny little nerd with a comb-over sitting at a filthy keyboard in dirty underware eating day-old freedom fries.
You harp incessantly about no proof of service. Why don't you cough up the email then, little man, so you can get your proof?
You don't because with the proof you'd have to stop hiding behind rocks and calling others "traitor". That's why you refuse to put it up. Plain and simple.
YOU DON'T WANT THE TRUTH because then you'd have to shut your silly a$$ up about it.
Posted by Lieberman181 at 05:08 PM : Feb 24, 2007
Give me the email, little man.
Oh, a couple of Sieg Heil Osamas in there too.
Still no proof of service, no apologies for supporting Islamofascism, and for dissing the true Marines serving in Iraq. Kind of like John Kerry - oh, I'm reporting for duty - right, in a manner reminiscent of Genghis Khan...That you too, Ex?
Oh, I'm sure you've got a couple more loads of hot air, manure, and surrender bs to drop before the day is out - traitor.
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See all 222 Comments