Democrats ready to fight new war plan

Democrats yesterday attacked President Bush’s new plan to send more U.S. troops to Iraq and began laying the groundwork for a showdown between the executive and legislative branches over war powers.

“Escalation of this war is not the change the American people called for in the last election,” Democratic Whip Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois said last night in his party’s response to Mr. Bush’s prime-time presentation of his Iraq strategy changes.

“Instead of a new direction, the president’s plan moves the American commitment in Iraq in the wrong direction.”

The new Democratic-led Congress plans to grill Bush administration officials during Capitol Hill hearings on the Iraq war — beginning this morning when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates testify before congressional committees.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Americans want to know whether Mr. Bush’s strategy is a “change of course.”

“Or is this simply more of the same with slightly different rhetoric?” Mr. Schumer said.

Miss Rice will testify before the Senate and House foreign relations committees today, and Mr. Gates, who replaced the war’s architect Donald H. Rumsfeld last month, will testify before the House Armed Services Committee today and the Senate Armed Services Committee tomorrow.

Democratic leaders also are drafting a nonbinding resolution opposing the troop surge, which they want to put up for a vote in both the House and Senate next week and which they think some Republicans will support.

“The issue is: Do you support the president’s policy? That will be the vote,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat.

Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican and a favorite of conservatives, last night said Mr. Bush’s troop surge is not the answer.

“Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution,” he said.

Mr. Bush said he will send more than 17,000 soldiers to Baghdad and 4,000 Marines to the Anbar province to try to break the cycle of violence and “hasten the day our troops begin coming home.” He said Iraq has responsibilities that it must meet.

“The president knows there is no silver bullet to make our mission there easier, but he is committed to a new, better strategy that will move us toward a stable Iraq,” said House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri.

“It is not the responsibility of members of Congress to dictate strategy to the commander in chief, who is ultimately responsible, along with the commanders on the ground, for implementing a winning strategy.”

But Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said that if neither the hearings nor the anti-troop surge resolution change Mr. Bush’s stance, he will move forward with a bill in “a matter of days” that would require the president to seek congressional approval for a troop increase.

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