Political Parties Set Stage for Debate on Supplemental Defense Spending Bill

April 2, 2008

As House appropriators begin moving forward with the latest supplemental spending bill to fund the Iraq War, Republicans and Democrats are fighting for the moral high ground on the conflict.

John P. Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, said Tuesday that the full committee will mark up the war supplemental on April 15. The bill would track with the remainder of President Bush’s supplemental request from last fall, he said.

That would put it at around $110 billion. Bush had sought $196.4 billion for fiscal 2008 programs under the rubric of “the global war on terrorism.” Congress last year provided $86.8 billion toward that request, promising to revisit it in April.

Meanwhile, Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, launched the Republicans’ message on Iraq in the run-up to next week’s congressional testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the top U.S. civilian official there.

The rhetorical lines being drawn by Republicans and Democrats trace the same positions that dominated last year’s congressional debates on Iraq. Democrats are again questioning political progress under Bush’s “surge” strategy, while Republicans are hailing the surge and equating that assessment with support for the troops.

Democrats prepared to hold their own hearings this week to rebut claims of the surge’s success and make the case for legislation setting goals for withdrawals, mandates for training and equipping troops, and longer rest time between deployments. Democrats also plan to use legislation to block any long-term security and economic agreement with Iraq unless it has Senate approval.

The first legislative vehicle for the Democratic proposals will be the supplemental, but a rhetorical high point may come during congressional testimony from Petraeus and Crocker on April 8 and April 9. Petraeus is expected to call for a halt in troop withdrawals to assess the security situation, leaving approximately 140,000 troops in Iraq. Republicans say he is best equipped to gauge the situation, and Bush is expected to follow his recommendation.

A memo outlining the strategy that House Republicans intend to pursue this week stresses three points: The surge is working; political progress, though insufficient, is under way; and Congress should fully fund the troops for victory, not withdrawal.