GOP filibuster frustrates Senate debate on Iraq war

SF Gate
(02-06) 04:00 PST Washington -- Senate Republicans on Monday blocked debate on the Iraq war, stymieing efforts by Democrats to send even a weak bipartisan message opposing President Bush's order of 21,500 more troops into an intensifying civil war in Baghdad and Anbar province.

Senate Republican leaders pressured their most vocal anti-war critics into a test of party loyalty, using a procedural vote to save the administration a major embarrassment and stall Democratic plans to ratchet up pressure on the White House to begin pulling back from Iraq. The move also saved wavering Republicans from casting a difficult vote revealing their stand on the war.

Unless the Senate impasse can be broken, the war debate will turn next to the House, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, has promised to begin debate next week. House Democrats had hoped that the Senate would move first, demonstrating a strong, bipartisan resistance to Bush's war plans, but that does not appear likely.

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said no decision had been made yet on what kind of resolution would be brought up -- whether it would be one similar to the bipartisan nonbinding Senate version offered by Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., or a straight up-or-down vote on Bush's plan.

"We will have a vote,'' Daly said. "Clearly the American people and a bipartisan majority of the House and Senate want to have a discussion and a vote on Iraq."

The Senate debate was to be the first on the war since Democrats took control of Congress after the November elections. Instead, the impasse demonstrates that Senate Republicans, despite their widespread misgivings about Iraq and their new minority status, still lend critical support to Bush's handling of the war.

At least eight Republicans were prepared to vote for the Warner resolution stating the Senate "disagrees" with the troop increase. But the motion to end a filibuster and begin the Senate debate failed 49-47, with all Republicans and Sen. Joe Lieberman, independent-Conn., voting no.

Democrats, with the backing of Lieberman and Sen. Bernie Sanders, independent-Vt., hold a 51-49 majority, in the Senate where the minority wields enormous power through the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to break.

The question is how long the Republican support, already fracturing, can hold. Republicans routinely describe the troop increase as Bush's last chance in Iraq. Twenty Senate Republicans face re-election in 2008, and with public support for Bush and the war reaching new lows, the party is not expected to hold together much longer unless the troop increase quickly improves the situation.

Bush continues to meet with wavering Republicans to shore up support. "Believe me, I felt the love," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, of a Friday meeting with the president.

Despite voicing criticism of the troop increase, Murkowski said she remains undecided on a resolution opposing it.

"I am still working over the message that is sent and the recognition that you've got different audiences that are viewing this," Murkowski said. "This is not just a message to President Bush, though there are some who would have it be that simple. It is also a message to (Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-) Maliki, it's a message to our troops, it's a message to the Iraqi people, it's a message to our allies, it's a message to our enemies."

Republicans said Monday they were willing to debate the war, but insisted on more amendments than Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was willing to consider, particularly one by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., saying the Senate should not cut off funding for troops in the field.

"The Republican side is ready for this debate," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "We're anxious to have it."

McConnell said Republicans were not resorting to any special tactics, calling it "ordinary" to require 60 votes before an item can move forward on the floor of the Senate and pointing to the Democratic use of the filibuster against Bush's judicial appointments when they were in the Senate minority.

McConnell made clear that he would insist that any war measures meet a 60-vote threshold.

A frustrated Reid angrily promised a relentless pushback on requests by the White House for money and other measures supporting the war.

"You can run but you can't hide," Reid said. "I'm telling everyone within the sound of my voice ... we are going to debate Iraq."

Citing the deaths of more than 3,100 U.S. troops, Reid said, "They are dead! We are not going to allow the situation in Iraq to continue."

Reid said he was under time pressure to pass by Feb. 15 a spending plan left over from last year to avoid a government shutdown. He accused the Republicans of draining the time needed for the debate over the Iraq resolutions, possibly forcing a postponement that could last weeks.

McConnell accused Democrats of trying to avoid a debate on the Gregg amendment, which might have secured more votes than the Warner resolution and muddied the anti-war message Bush's opponents had hoped to send.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., dismissed the Gregg amendment as a "shibboleth," because the vast majority of Democrats oppose cutting funding for the troops. "It's going to come up again and again and again," Feinstein said. "It's just dreadful that you can't debate a resolution on the No. 1 topic facing the nation."

Opponents of the president's war policy -- including Warner, a longtime Republican supporter of the military and a former Navy secretary -- leaped on a devastating report by the government's intelligence agencies released Friday that portrayed a far grimmer situation in Iraq than the president has acknowledged.

The National Intelligence Estimate said the term civil war "does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq," which includes a "sea change" in violence among groups jockeying for power, a hardening of sectarian divisions and rising extremism.

Warner said 323,000 Iraqi troops have been trained by the United States at great expense and they should be the ones inserted into Baghdad because they understand the language and culture.

"How does an American GI being thrust in the darkened alleys of this city, with all of the cross fire between the Sunni and the Shia, Shia upon Shia, Sunni upon Sunni, decide whom to shoot," he said.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., made clear that he would have supported the Warner resolution and that the war needed to be debated.

Iraq "is engulfing the work of this body, and the House and all of Washington," Specter said. "There is no oxygen left in this town" for anything else.

Lieberman, who voted with Republicans, has been a consistent supporter of the war and the president's policy. He argued Monday that Bush's plan and the "decisive battle for Baghdad" should be allowed to work, and if senators don't believe it can, they should "have the courage of your convictions" and vote to cut off funds or give the White House a binding timeline to withdraw.