House initiates anti-war motion

House Democrats introduced a war resolution yesterday condemning President Bush’s plan to send reinforcement troops to Iraq, but their anti-war supporters say it misses the point because it doesn’t simply cut funding for the war.

“Congress disapproves of the decision” to send 21,500 more troops to the Middle East, states the resolution. It says Congress will “continue to support and protect” U.S. armed forces but doesn’t address cutting war funds — the only tool Congress has for ending the war.

The nonbinding statement of disapproval was drafted by two senior Democrats, Reps. Ike Skelton of Missouri and Tom Lantos of California, and a Republican, Rep. Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, who voted for the war in 2002 but have since turned against it. House debate on it will begin today.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said yesterday that at the end of the week, “we will vote on a straightforward position: Do you support the president’s plan or oppose it?”

She said the vote “will herald whether the House understands the message the American people are sending about the policies used to implement this war.”

But peace activists who voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates in the November elections say Mrs. Pelosi and Democrats in Congress have gotten the message all wrong.

“Congress is not listening to the voice of the people,” said Gael Murphy, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink: Women for Peace.

“We are disappointed that Congress is not moving forward expeditiously and we are being distracted by this nonbinding resolution that holds no one accountable,” she said. “From what we can tell, nobody is interested in debating a real exit strategy.”

Ms. Murphy, who is leading daily protests at congressional hearings and a lobbying offensive on members’ offices, said her group will keep pressing Democrats to stop the war.

“No one is putting pressure on Bush to come up with an exit strategy, which is what the people want,” she said. “All we are talking about is an escalation of the war.”

Kevin Martin, executive director of Peace Action, the country’s largest anti-war group with about 100,000 members, said Democrats are failing to seize the “mandate for peace” from the election.

“The interests of the peace movement are not the same as that of the Democratic Party,” he said. “I’m more concerned with ending the war than with re-election in ‘08. I don’t think I can say that for some of the Democrats.”

Mr. Martin, who blames both parties for supporting the war in the first place, said, “Congress needs to use the power of the purse to cut off funding for the war.” Of the nonbinding resolutions opposing reinforcements, he said they’re “a worthless waste of time. Why bother?”

It’s a narrow point on which Rep. John Carter, Texas Republican, agrees with the peace activists.

“These meaningless nonbinding resolutions are a distraction,” he said. “This is just a political stunt by the Democrats that will not bring us any closer to ending the war. It only serves to weaken the morale of our fighting men and women and allows our enemy to claim victory.”

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