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GOP vows to stop Congress on withdrawal

As the Senate opened debate on Monday on a US$122 billion Iraq spending bill, Republicans vowed not to allow Congress to impose a withdrawal date for US troops but said they would rely on US President George W. Bush's veto pen rather than procedural maneuvers to block it.

Bush has vowed to veto any legislation that establishes a timetable to remove combat troops from Iraq. The Democratic-led House has passed such a plan, and Senate Democratic leaders are seeking to advance a similar measure this week, but Democrats do not have enough votes in either chamber to override a veto.

For weeks, Republican leaders have used procedural maneuvers to delay a debate over Iraq. But Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said he did not want to hold up financing for the war by spending more time than necessary on a measure that will never become law.

Republicans signaled that they would not use procedural measures to block the bill but would let the White House kill it and then urge Democrats to pass a bill that provides funding for the war without setting any dates for troop withdrawals.

"We need to get the bill on down to the president and get the veto out of the way," McConnell said.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, played down the veto threat. In a speech on the Senate floor on Monday, he said the president was on the wrong side of public opinion.

"He can swagger all he wants," Reid said, "but we have 3,241 dead Americans."

The Senate legislation, in addition to financing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next six months, would set a nonbinding goal of March 31, 2008, for most combat troops to be removed from Iraq.
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