House Democrats unveil plan calling for U.S. troop pullout from Iraq by fall

WASHINGTON – In a direct challenge to President Bush, House Democrats unveiled legislation Thursday requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the fall of next year. The White House said Bush would veto it.\nSpeaker Nancy Pelosi said the deadline would be added to legislation providing nearly $100 billion the Bush administration has requested for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.\nShe told reporters the measure would mark the first time the new Democratic-controlled Congress has established a “date certain” for the end of U.S. combat in the four-year-old war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,100 U.S. troops.\nSenior White House adviser Dan Bartlett, accompanying Bush on a flight to Latin America, told reporters, “It’s safe to say it’s a nonstarter for the president.”\nWithin an hour of Pelosi’s news conference, House Republican Leader John Boehner attacked the measure. He said Democrats were proposing legislation that amounted to “establishing and telegraphing to our enemy a timetable” that would result in failure of the U.S. military mission in Iraq.\n“Gen. (David) Petraeus should be the one making the decisions on what happens on the ground in Iraq, not Nancy Pelosi or John Murtha,” the Ohio Republican added. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, has been heavily involved in crafting legislation designed to end U.S., participation in the war.\nAccording to an explanation of the measure distributed by Democratic aides, the timetable for withdrawal would be accelerated if the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not meet goals for providing for Iraq’s security.\nDemocrats won control of Congress last fall in midterm elections shadowed by public opposition to the war, and have vowed since taking power to challenge Bush’s policies.\nPelosi made her announcement as Senate Democrats reviewed a different approach – a measure that would set a goal of a troop withdrawal by March of 2008. Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called a closed-door meeting of the rank-and-file to consider the measure.\nIn the House, Pelosi and the leadership have struggled in recent days to come up with an approach on the war that would satisfy liberals reluctant to vote for continued funding without driving away more moderate Democrats unwilling to be seen as tying the hands of military commanders.\nThe decision to impose conditions on the war risks a major confrontation with the Bush administration and its Republican allies in Congress.\nBut without a unified party, the Democratic leadership faced the possibility of a highly embarrassing defeat when the spending legislation reaches a vote, likely later this month. establishing a deadline for troop withdrawals.\nTalking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Bartlett called it “a political compromise in the Democratic caucus of the House aimed at bringing comity to their internal politics, not reflective of the conditions on the ground in Iraq.”\n“It would unnecessarily handcuff our generals on the ground, he said. “Obviously, the administration would vehemently oppose and ultimately veto any legislation that looks like what was described today.”