House Democrats passed a nonbinding resolution Friday condemning President Bush’s plan to send 21,500 combat soldiers and Marines to Iraq.
After three days of often somber debate, 17 Republicans joined the Democratic majority to condemn the proposed use of the troops to try to stabilize Baghdad.
The Senate will meet in a special session today.
Democrats there hope they can break a Republican-led filibuster that has kept a similarly symbolic resolution from coming up for a vote.
The resolution is nonbinding, but the Democrats hope they can retire some of their debt to the anti-war voters who gave the party its majority in last year’s elections.
“Success in Iraq requires more than military force,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said from the floor Friday. “And that really is what this debate is about today.”
The White House and its loyalists in Congress were disappointed in the resolution’s passage — saying that it judged the president’s “surge” before it could be given a chance — but said that the resolution was a shallow victory for the Democrats.
The president will propose a $93 billion supplemental military budget in a matter of weeks.
It’s unclear what the Democrats will do with it.
The party has been divided between those who favor an immediate end to the war and those who prefer what they call a “phased withdrawal” from Iraq.
Democratic leaders spent much of the week beating back Republican charges that the Democrats would cut funding to American forces who are already serving in Iraq.
The Democrats have crafted their arguments to push for a re-emphasis on training Iraqi forces and on international diplomacy and away from daily combat in Iraq.
Some, such as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., have admitted that this approach will not take American forces out of harm’s way in the immediate future.
But anti-war Democrats don’t seem to be in the mood for compromise.
“The nonbinding resolution is intended to send a message to the White House that it’s time to reverse course in Iraq,” said Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., who sits on the vital Defense Appropriations subcommittee.
“If ignored, the president can be assured the next step won’t be of the nonbinding variety.”
