White House opposes limits on war authority

Bush administration says it will fight Democrats’ attempt to curb power

February 23, 2007

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Bush administration says it will fight Democrats’ attempt to curb powerThe White House said Friday it would oppose any attempt by Senate Democrats to revoke the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the war in Iraq and leave U.S. troops with a limited mission as they prepare to withdraw.

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. Still, the White House said that Democrats were in a state of confusion about Iraq.

“There’s a lot of ... shifting sands in the Democrats’ position right now,” White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said. “It’s hard to say exactly what their position is.”

The precise wording of the Democrats’ measure remains unsettled. One version would restrict American troops in Iraq to fighting the al-Qaida terrorist network, training Iraqi army and police forces, maintaining Iraq’s territorial integrity and otherwise proceeding with the withdrawal of combat forces.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., intends to present the proposal to fellow Democrats next week, and he is expected to try to add the measure to anti-terrorism legislation scheduled to be debated later this month. 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 Friday. He said that pulling troops out of Baghdad would result in chaos.

‘No final decisions have been made’

Republicans recently thwarted two Democratic attempts to pass a nonbinding measure through the Senate that was critical of 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.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, declined to discuss the deliberations, saying only, “No final decisions have been made on how to proceed.”

Any attempt to limit Bush’s powers as commander in chief would likely face strong opposition from Republican allies of the administration in the Senate. Additionally, unlike earlier, nonbinding measures, the legislation now under consideration could also face a veto threat.

Still, it marks a quickening of the challenge Democrats are mounting to Bush’s war policies following midterm elections in which war-weary 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, where a nonbinding measure passed last week.

Criticism from some Democrats

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she expects the next challenge to Bush’s war policies to come in the form of legislation requiring the Pentagon to adhere to strict training and readiness standards in the case of troops ticketed for the war zone.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the leading advocate of that approach, has said it would effectively deny 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 that toppled Saddam Hussein.

‘The continuing threat posed by Iraq

’That measure authorized the president to use the armed forces “as he determines to be necessary and appropriate ... to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and to enforce relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.

At the time the world body had passed resolutions regarding Iraq’s presumed effort to develop weapons of mass destruction.