Bush unlikely to face showdown over 'surge'

san francisco chronicle

(01-09) 04:00 PST Washington -- President Bush will face the first stiff resistance from Congress to his Iraq war plans since the U.S. invasion nearly four years ago as more Republicans question his policy and newly empowered Democrats overwhelmingly oppose his expected call for 20,000 more troops.

Yet given the powers of the commander in chief, and the manifold risks of a U.S. defeat, Bush appears to have the authority -- despite congressional unease -- to make one last stab at stabilizing Iraq.

As the Republican president prepares to lay out his new war plan in a speech Wednesday night, Democrats considered Monday withholding funding for what they're calling an escalation of the war.

Still, congressional opposition, especially among Republicans vital to Bush's support, has not yet reached the tipping point that would force the president to back down.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who declared last month that he was at the end of his rope on Iraq, said Bush told him and other GOP senators Monday at the White House that the new war plan was devised chiefly by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who presented it to Bush last month.

Smith said Bush appeared confident that al-Maliki would follow through on promises to commit Iraqi troops to quelling the violence in Baghdad and take aim at the Shiite militias led by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, on whom al-Maliki relies for political support.

"It is that belief that the president has, and the faith he has in Prime Minister Maliki, that leads him to tack into the winds of American public opinion," Smith said. "What this sets up is a classic war powers confrontation between the White House and the Congress.

"My dilemma, as for every member of Congress, is that we have only one commander in chief at a time, and he is ordering our troops into a certain posture that puts them in harm's way. Do we budget away their bullets?"

Bush has been meeting with members of Congress in preparation for his speech, now weeks in the making. Smith said the Cabinet-room meeting Monday was attended by Bush's top war counselors: Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen Hadley and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten.

Democrats now in the majority in the House and Senate are discussing the possibility of withholding funds for added troops as well as other limits, such as a cap on troop levels or a new resolution authorizing the use of force.

"This is an escalation, and we ought to have a chance to have our say," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. "We ought to be able to vote on it before that occurs."

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., acknowledged, however, that it would be difficult to separate money for more troops from general funding for the war, especially if the so-called troop "surge" comes by extending the duty of troops already in Iraq or speeding up rotations of troops scheduled to go in. "So whether you can carve out and say, 'We're going to fund this, but not additional troops,' that's not clear," Obama said. "But those are the kinds of questions that I think are being asked right now."

Republicans also said they want to examine any new plan. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., who last fall called for a new war strategy while chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, "The administration will state its case, and then I'll state mine."

Asked if Bush can expect full Republican support for his plan, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, replied bluntly, "No."

"I just think it's one of those subjects that's going to divide the Congress just as it's divided the country," Cornyn said. But he said the division is unlikely to affect Bush's ability to conduct the war as he sees fit.

"The only real effective tool that Congress has is the power of the purse, and I can't imagine we would cut off money to fund the troops," Cornyn said. Even cutting off money for additional troops, he said, would be a mistake because "it would guarantee failure" and risk creating a power vacuum in Iraq that could be exploited by terrorists, as in the case of Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Bush's plan, he said, is "our last, best chance at success."

Bush has money for now. The military spending bill was one of only two of the 11 required appropriations measures that Congress passed last year while still under Republican control. The administration is expected to make a large new request for more money soon to finance the war in separate legislation, called a supplemental appropriation. Estimates are that the new request could be about $100 billion -- on top of the estimated $450 billion already spent for the war in Iraq.

As commander in chief, the president has broad authority to conduct war, and Congress has only the blunt tool of withdrawing funding. Democrats have only a one-vote majority in the Senate, making it difficult to thwart the president.

Politically and legislatively, support from his fellow Republicans remains vital for Bush's Iraq policy. But it is rapidly weakening under Iraq's relentless disintegration despite every change in administration tactics, and the November midterm election that knocked Republicans from power on Capitol Hill.

The U.S. military has about 140,000 troops in Iraq. Several Republicans already have announced their opposition to increasing troop levels, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Rep. Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican and former National Security Council official who barely clung to her seat in November.

Wilson made a major speech in Washington Friday criticizing Bush for "mushy rhetoric" about the U.S. stake in a democratic Iraq.

Bush is getting strong support, however from several leading Republicans, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona. Joining them is independent former Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. They sharply warned their colleagues that failing to back Bush's effort would ensure failure in Iraq and all its consequences.

"Let's not compound the mistakes of the past by advocating withdrawal or redeployment," Graham said. "Because what would happen then? It would be, in my opinion, a declaration of losing a war not yet lost, that we can't afford to lose."