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http://snipurl.com/fnf2 Pressure growing to plan Iraq exit Bipartisan group pushes resolution By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | June 16, 2005 WASHINGTON -- House Republican leaders are blocking a measure that would require the Bush administration to swiftly produce an exit plan for the war in Iraq, as critics in Congress from both parties step up the pressure on the administration to identify a way for the United States to extricate itself from the conflict. Today, a small, bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by a Republican who supported the war, plans to introduce a resolution calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq beginning in October 2006. The effort follows a bid by Democrats to require the Bush administration to draw up, within 30 days, an exit plan. The Democrats' bill was swept aside in committee and is unlikely to reach the House floor for a vote. But the bipartisan resolution, sponsored by Representative Walter Jones Jr., a North Carolina Republican, could prove a more nettlesome challenge for Bush's congressional allies. With polls indicating that public support for the war has dwindled, more lawmakers who supported the use of force in Iraq are openly voicing their concerns about the lack of a clear, publicly stated plan to set limits on the US presence there. Last week, the House International Relations Committee voted 32-9 to call on Bush to develop a strategy to leave Iraq. The White House rejects the idea, believing such a policy would only encourage the Iraqi insurgency. The political maneuvers are being made amid continuing violence in Iraq and the recent controversy over a British government memo that called into question the Bush administration's motives for going to war. Some prominent Republicans seem worried that if Republicans vote for the bipartisan bill in substantial numbers -- even if, in the end, the bill is defeated -- it would be embarrassing for the administration and would undermine Bush's authority. Jones, who once made headlines by pushing to rename french fries ''freedom fries" to protest French opposition to the war, will offer the resolution urging Bush to start bringing US forces home in October 2006. By that date, Jones said, the numbers of trained Iraqi security forces should be sufficient to keep order and protect their own country. ''The American people are getting to a point here: How much more can we take?" said Jones, whose resolution has one fellow Republican and two Democrats as cosponsors. ''We have ousted Saddam Hussein. That's a victory. We've given them an opportunity to develop a democracy. That is a victory. We're training Iraqi troops. That will be a victory," Jones said. ''Have we achieved our goals, and if not, what are those goals?" Meanwhile, in the Senate, Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, is signing up cosponsors for a resolution demanding that Bush produce a timetable for reaching his goals in Iraq -- and for withdrawing troops thereafter. Feingold quickly received the support of Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California. Senator Lincoln D. Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, said yesterday he may sign on, too. Chafee, who opposed the war, said the growing demands in both the House and the Senate for Bush to clarify his goals in Iraq are a direct response to increasing public concern about the war. ''If the politicians are doing it, it's reflecting public opinion," Chafee said. Bush and his top aides have resisted setting a timeline for troop withdrawal or talking publicly about specific goals. Doing so, they say, would provide information useful to the insurgency -- an argument the House GOP leadership has endorsed. ''I never tell my kids when my patience is going to run out, because they'll usually try it," said Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana and a staunch Bush ally. ''Tactically, it's very unwise to signal a timeframe to the enemy, because it essentially gives them a deadline for how long they have to hang on." Pence said he doesn't sense frustration among his constituents or his GOP colleagues with the progress of the war in Iraq. But a Gallup poll released this week indicated that 60 percent of Americans thought the United States should bring home some or all of its troops, and only 42 percent said the Iraq invasion was worth it. Two years ago, a substantial majority of those polled backed the invasion. Tuesday, against that backdrop, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, sought a vote on a resolution that would give Bush 30 days to set forth specific criteria for troop withdrawal. She wanted to attach the resolution as an amendment to the defense appropriations bill, which includes an additional $45 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the House Rules Committee, on a 6-2 vote, stopped Pelosi's request on procedural grounds, calling it out of order to tie such a policy question to spending bill. There is nothing unusual about Republican leaders brushing aside amendments offered by Democrats. But in this case, said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, GOP leaders seemed worried about the possibility that some party lawmakers might break ranks and vote for Pelosi's amendment. ''Increasingly, members of both parties are looking for an exit strategy in Iraq or -- as some prefer to phrase it -- a victory strategy," Mann said. ''If such a resolution passed, it would be widely seen as a stinging criticism of the administration." Representative James P. McGovern, a Worcester Democrat who serves on the Rules Committee and who voted for Pelosi's amendment, said Republican leaders are feeling heat from rank-and-file members and their constituents over the lingering violence in Iraq. ''The Republican leadership is biting their fingernails off over this," McGovern said. ''This Congress has been negligent with regard to its duty on Iraq. We didn't ask the right questions before the war. Now, no one is being held accountable." Jones, the representative who will introduce the troop withdrawal bill, is being joined by a diverse group of lawmakers in what is the first bipartisan legislation of its kind since the war started. His cosponsors are Representative Ron E. Paul, a Texas Republican who is perhaps Congress's leading libertarian, and two leading House liberals: Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, and Representative Neil Abercrombie, Democrat of Hawaii. Paul, Kucinich, and Abercrombie all voted against the war. As news of the bill spread, Jones was congratulated by a number of House members in the lobby just outside the House chamber. Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democrat who voted to give Bush authorization to invade Iraq, said members feel misled by the administration's prewar briefings that helped them conclude Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. ''Nobody would have voted for this resolution" if they had known then what they do now, she said. ''There's a growing recognition that things have gone terribly wrong in Iraq, and the acknowledgement that the administration does not have a handle on the future of Iraq, or of America's role in Iraq." Susan Milligan of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 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