Roll Call ($) takes a lengthy look at the Congressional debate on the Iraq/Afghanistan appropriations measure and reports that each House is doing what it must to get a funding measure to conference. The piece notes the Senate's reluctance to pass a short-term bill, and gives a more detailed look at exactly how the House bill will be structured:
Indeed, Levin and other pivotal Democratic Senators coming out of their regular Tuesday lunch cast doubt on whether the Senate could pass a short-term war funding bill and questioned the practical and political wisdom of doing so.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who provided the crucial 51st vote on the original war supplemental and is likely to be a conferee on the second version, poured cold water all over the House proposal, saying he sensed that it "would be dead on arrival over here..."
Under the proposal outlined by House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.), the two-tier spending bill would require Congress to approve the full $95.5 billion allotted for military operations in Iraq. However, only $30 billion of that amount would be made immediately available, enough to fund troops for about two to three months.
The remaining funds could be distributed to the military only after a subsequent vote by lawmakers, which would occur in late July under the current proposal...
The Snowe-Bayh bill would require the Iraqi government to make "substantial progress" toward political reconciliation among warring factions in the country. The Government Accountability Office would have to conduct a review of the benchmarks set out in the bill 120 days after enactment, and if any of the benchmarks had not been met, the U.S. commander in Iraq would have to come up with a plan for the redeployment of U.S. forces...
It's significant that Senators Snowe and Bayh are working on a bipartisan bill that calls for redeployment if benchmarks are not achieved. I imagine that Senator Reid will back this approach -- or something similar -- as the best way to force a withdrawal. Senator Snowe's support means that this measure will draw at least a few Republican votes.
Would the White House try to block a bill with such penalties? It might require a filibuster, and it's unclear whether the Republican votes would be there for such a move. The president could wind up again facing a decision about whether to veto a bill with a timetable for withdrawal -- this time one that triggers a redeployment only if benchmarks are not achieved.
In its piece on this fight, the Washington Post quotes a State Department official who lays out the problems with the House approach:
Calling the Democrats' action a "moral hazard," the official said, "Okay, let's pass a law saying no more funding past July 31 if the [oil] package of laws doesn't pass. What do you suppose happens next? If I was sitting in a neighboring country, really looking forward to saying bye-bye to the Americans, you've just shown me a way to do it."
Strong diplomatic pressure is already being applied on the Maliki government, a senior administration official said, and mandating political reforms by a certain date would drive Iraqis further apart. "It allows extremist factions to say that these legislative benchmarks, which were an Iraqi political agenda, is an American agenda," the official said.
"If you say the next two months are make or break, I think I can predict what we'll see," the official said. "We will see a sustained trend of suicide attacks" by al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni extremists, making the Shiite-led government even less willing to move on de-Baathification.
"It's a really harmful approach," the official said. "There is a risk you can push [the Iraqi government] off a cliff."
It's important that policymakers make clear the situation in Iraq. At the same time, it seems extremely likely that there will soon be benchmarks spelled out -- by the president, or Congress, or both. One has to expect that the president will soon respond directly to the question of what benchmarks are acceptable -- if any -- and what consequences he might support.
