Emanuel Urges Dems To Stand Ground On Iraq
Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois urged his fellow Democratic leaders in the House not to back down in their standoff with the White House over the terms of a war-funding bill for Iraq.
Citing Bush’s lack of public support, Emanuel insists that Democratic leaders refuse any preconditions the president offers in anticipation of that meeting, according to a strategy memo the Caucus chairman sent his fellow leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Caucus Vice Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.).
Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) initially rejected Bush’s invite to the White House next week to discuss the emergency spending bill on the grounds that the president was insisting that Democrats pass a “clean” supplemental without a firm withdrawal date, military benchmarks or "excessive" non-military spending.
The Democratic leaders have since agreed to meet with Bush next Wednesday at the White House on the grounds that the president heed their concerns.
“We will be at the White House on Wednesday to talk with the President,” the leaders said in a joint statement Wednesday. “We will listen to his position, but in return we will insist that he listen to concerns of the American people that his policies in Iraq have failed and we need to change course.”
Congressional Democrats are locked in a delicate political dance with the White House over the substance of that legislation, with both sides negotiating through the press in an effort to sway public sentiment.
Emanuel cites polls from Time Magazine and Newsweek that suggest “nearly 70 % of the American people continue to support our plan for a new direction in Iraq.” The Newsweek poll Emanuel cites found that 62 percent of independent voters oppose the escalation, a point he seizes on to illustrate the majority party’s support among a key segment of the electorate.
This comes three months in to Bush’s troop “surge” into Baghdad, in which the president ordered upwards of 28,000 additional troops into Iraq. This week, the Pentagon announced it would send an additional 13,000 National Guard troops to the war-torn country and that tours for all active-duty soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will be extended from 12 months to 15 months.
As the showdown progresses, Emanuel believes Democrats must remain unified in the face of an intransigent president who still has the support of GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“Democrats must remain resolute while publicly urging the President to join us for meaningful negotiations on the supplemental,” Emanuel wrote in the planning memo obtained by Politico. “While we must not reject out of hand the President’s offer to meet with Democrats to discuss the supplemental, we must insist on meaningful negotiations with the White House.”
Moving forward, Emanuel recommends the other leaders to:
- “Continue to pressure the President to negotiate with Congressional leaders on the Iraq supplemental
- “High the President’s stay-the-course, status quo strategy for Iraq
- “Highlight the President’s willingness to provide Iraq with an open-ended commitment to U.S. troops
- “Emphasize the President now walking away from benchmarks he laid out in his January speech
- “Remind the country that Congressional Republicans are willing to rubberstamp the President’s stay-the-course policies but have no plan of their own for Iraq”
Emanuel explains that Bush and congressional Democrats both want to fund troops already in Iraq, but that Democrats “believe the Iraqi people must meet the strategic benchmarks the President outlined in early January, while the President walked away from those benchmarks.”
he Democratic Caucus chairman also recommends his fellow leaders to encourage additional oversight efforts to scrutinize the administration’s handling of the war.
“As we seek to negotiate with the President, Democrats must also continue to highlight the impact of the President’s chronic mismanagement of the war,” Emanuel wrote.
Emanuel, a former top White House aide to Bill Clinton who knows a thing or two about fluctuating approval ratings, also points out that Bush’s own approval ratings have remained “at or below” 35 percent for more than a year and are “showing no signs of improvement” which puts him “in the ballpark of Richard Nixon’s in the months leading up to his resignation.”