Uproar in House as Parties Clash on Iraq
Pullout
NY Times
ERIC SCHMITT
November 19, 2005
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 - Republicans and Democrats shouted, howled and slung
insults on the House floor on Friday as a debate over whether to withdraw
American troops from Iraq descended into a fury over President Bush's handling
of the war and a leading Democrat's call to bring the troops home.
The battle boiled over when Representative Jean Schmidt, an Ohio Republican
who is the most junior member of the House, told of a phone call she had just
received from a Marine colonel back home.
"He asked me to send Congress a message: stay the course," Ms. Schmidt said.
"He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and
run, Marines never do."
Democrats booed in protest and shouted Ms. Schmidt down in her attack on
Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a Vietnam combat veteran and one
of the House's most respected members on military matters. They caused the
House to come to an abrupt standstill, and moments later, Representative Harold
Ford, Democrat of Tennessee, charged across the chamber's center aisle to the
Republican side screaming that Ms. Schmidt's attack had been unwarranted.
"You guys are pathetic!" yelled Representative Martin Meehan, Democrat of
Massachusetts. "Pathetic."
The measure to withdraw the troops failed in a 403-to-3 vote late Friday
night.
The rancorous debate drew an extraordinary scolding from Senator John W.
Warner, the Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee.
"Today's debate in the House of Representatives shows the need for
bipartisanship on the war in Iraq, instead of more political posturing," Mr.
Warner said in a statement.
But as the third hour of debate opened, with the House chamber mostly full
on the eve of the Thanksgiving recess, even two senior Republicans, Henry Hyde
of Illinois and Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, tried to temper the personal
nature of the confrontation by offering tributes to Mr. Murtha. "I give him an
A-plus as a truly great American," Mr. Hyde said.
Then Mr. Murtha, who normally shuns publicity, gave an impassioned 15-minute
plea for his plan to withdraw American troops, who he said had become "a
catalyst for violence" in Iraq. The American people, Mr. Murtha thundered, are
"thirsty for some direction; they're thirsty for a solution to this
problem."
The uproar followed days of mounting tension between Republicans and
Democrats in which the political debate over the war sharply intensified. With
Mr. Bush's popularity dropping in the polls, Democrats have sought anew to
portray him as having exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq before the American
invasion in 2003. Republicans have countered that Democrats were equally at
fault.
The battle came as Democrats accused Republicans of pulling a political
stunt by moving toward a vote on a symbolic alternative to the resolution that
Mr. Murtha offered on Thursday, calling for the swift withdrawal of American
troops. Democrats said the ploy distorted the meaning of Mr. Murtha's measure
and left little time for meaningful debate.
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, denied that there were
any political tricks involved and said pulling forces out of Iraq so rashly
would hurt troop morale overseas. "We want to make sure that we support our
troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said.
The measure's fate was sealed - and the vote count's significance minimized
- when the Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California,
criticized the Republican tactics and instructed Democrats to join Republicans
in voting against an immediate withdrawal.
"Just when you thought you'd seen it all, the Republicans have stooped to
new lows, even for them," said Ms. Pelosi, who assailed Republicans as
impugning Mr. Murtha's patriotism.
The parliamentary maneuvering came amid more than three hours of often nasty
floor debate and boisterous political theater, with Democrats accusing
Republicans of resorting to desperate tactics to back a failed war and
Republicans warning that Mr. Murtha's measure would play into the hands of
terrorists.
In South Korea, where Mr. Bush was in the final day of the Asian economic
summit, the White House released the text of a speech that he is scheduled to
make later on Saturday to American forces at Osan Air Base.
"In Washington there are some who say that the sacrifice is too great, and
they urge us to set a date for withdrawal before we have completed our
mission," Mr. Bush planned to say, keeping up the daily drumbeat of White House
response from 7,000 miles away. "Those who are in the fight know better. One of
our top commanders in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William Webster, says that setting a
deadline for our withdrawal from Iraq would be, quote, 'a recipe for disaster.'
"
"General Webster is right," Mr. Bush's text said. "And so long as I am
commander in chief, our strategy in Iraq will be driven by the sober judgment
of our military commanders on the ground."
On Thursday, Mr. Murtha called for pulling out the 153,000 American troops
within six months, saying they had become a catalyst for the continuing
violence in Iraq. His plan also called for a quick-reaction force in the
region, perhaps based in Kuwait, and for pursuing stability in Iraq through
diplomacy.
But House Republicans planned to put to a vote - and reject - their own
nonbinding alternative resolution that simply said: "It is the sense of the
House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be
terminated immediately."
Democrats denounced the Republican measure as a fraud. But Democrats
privately acknowledged that they were seeking to escape a political trap set by
the Republicans to box them into an unappealing choice: side with Mr. Murtha
and face criticism for backing a plan that American commanders say would
cripple the mission in Iraq or oppose their respected colleague and blunt
momentum for an overhaul of the administration's Iraq policy.
House Democrats greeted Mr. Murtha with a standing ovation on Friday as he
entered the chamber.
"This is a personal attack on one of the best members, one of the most
respected members of this House, and it is outrageous," said Representative Jim
McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts.
While some 70 liberal Democrats who support ending American military
involvement in Iraq have praised Mr. Murtha's plan, many of his other party
colleagues appeared to harbor doubts. To a member, Democrats said they
respected the counsel of Mr. Murtha, a retired Marine colonel who has earned
bipartisan respect in his three decades in Congress as a champion of American
service members.
But many senior House Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi of California, the
Democratic leader, have distanced themselves from Mr. Murtha's resolution,
saying a phased withdrawal is a more prudent course. The House debate is likely
to stoke an intensifying partisan debate on Capitol Hill over the
administration's handling of the war, including how it used prewar intelligence
to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Democrats, including Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode
Island, as well as Representative Jane Harman of California, the ranking
Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, defended Mr. Murtha and gave
examples of what they said were faulty intelligence.
The House action comes just days after the Republican-controlled Senate
defeated a Democratic push to have Mr. Bush describe a timetable for
withdrawal. Underscoring unease by both parties about the war, though, the
Senate then approved a Republican statement that 2006 should be a year in which
conditions were created for the Iraqi government to take over more security
duties in the country and allow the United States to begin withdrawing.
Even as Republicans sought to make political hay from Mr. Murtha's plan,
Democrats defended him as a patriot.
"I won't stand for the Swift-boating of Jack Murtha," said Senator John
Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. Mr. Kerry,
who is also a Vietnam veteran, was dogged during the campaign by a group called
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that challenged his war record.
David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Korea for this article.
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