Pelosi Backs War Funds Only With Conditions

[rodeodance]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/15/AR2007021500876.html


Pelosi Backs War Funds Only With Conditions
Equipment, Training For Troops Would Face New Standards

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 16, 2007; Page A01

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) yesterday linked her support for President Bush's war-funding request to strict standards of resting, training and equipping combat forces, a move that could curtail troop deployments and alter the course of U.S. involvement in Iraq.

The pledge came as Congress appears ready to assert its authority in matters of war and diplomacy, down to decisions that the White House believes to be the domain solely of the president as commander in chief: the deployment and training of military forces.

The House is to vote today on a nonbinding resolution disapproving of Bush's decision to deploy more than 21,000 additional troops to Iraq. Also, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced a rare Saturday vote to begin debate on the House resolution.

Congressional Democrats signaled a willingness to directly challenge and curtail Bush's warmaking powers, a move that will almost certainly spark a legal or constitutional confrontation. Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a Pelosi ally, is rewriting the president's spending request to limit Bush's options in prosecuting the war, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he will seek to repeal the 2002 congressional authorization for Bush to wage war in Iraq and substitute legislation that would narrow the mission of troops there and begin to bring some home............

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. It's a step

Wish it was a bigger step but it is a step.

[ClassWarrior]

2. I'm just glad we're moving in the right direction...

...and maybe it's just the optimist in me, but it seems like those steps get bigger each time.

NGU.

[youngdem]

3. Ugh.

Training isn't the problem. Iraqi participation isn't the problem.

The problem is US. The problem is that we ripped the lid off of Pandora's Box, and we haven't a CLUE on how to get it back on.

The only way we fix this is to leave, peck from the outside quietly, and pay the shit out of their neighbors to exert some moderating influence, then PRAY. A lot.

We are screwed. QUIT rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic please, and call this ship sunk.

For crying out loud, people's spouses and children are dying needlessly each day, all because we don't want to embarrass the CHIMP??!?!?!?

C'mon, NANCY....Show me more than this pathetic bullshit. This is just a ticket to 12 more months of the same, with months more of equivocation and promises for success in the future, while forgiving current carnage and failure.

[Doondoo]

4. bump

[mike_c]

5. DAMMIT-- Mr Fish says it all....

[Demeter]

6. kick because it's important, dammit!