The Democrats’ Gonzales

By David S. Broder
The Washington Post
Thursday, April 26, 2007; Page A29

Here’s a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats — a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.

If you answered ” Harry Reid,” give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.

President Bush’s highly developed tolerance for egregious incompetence in his administration may have met its supreme test in Attorney General Gonzales, who at various times has taken complete responsibility for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and professed complete ignorance of the reasons for their dismissal. This demonstration of serial obfuscation so impressed the president that he rushed out to declare that Gonzales had “increased my confidence in his ability to do the job.”

As if that were not mind-boggling enough, consider the mental gyrations performed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as he rationalized the recent comment from his majority leader, Harry Reid, the leading light of Searchlight, Nev., that the war in Iraq “is lost.”

On “Fox News Sunday,” Schumer offered this clarification of Reid’s off-the-cuff comment. “What Harry Reid is saying is that this war is lost — in other words, a war where we mainly spend our time policing a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. We are not going to solve that problem. . . . The war is not lost. And Harry Reid believes this — we Democrats believe it. . . . So the bottom line is if the war continues on this path, if we continue to try to police and settle a civil war that’s been going on for hundreds of years in Iraq, we can’t win. But on the other hand, if we change the mission and have that mission focus on the more narrow goal of counterterrorism, we sure can win.”

Everyone got that? This war is lost. But the war can be won. Not since Bill Clinton famously pondered the meaning of the word “is” has a Democratic leader confused things as much as Harry Reid did with his inept discussion of the alternatives in Iraq.

Nor is this the first time Senate Democrats, who chose Reid as their leader over Chris Dodd of Connecticut, have had to ponder the political fallout from one of Reid’s tussles with the language.

Hailed by his staff as “a strong leader who speaks his mind in direct fashion,” Reid is assuredly not a man who misses many opportunities to put his foot in his mouth. In 2005, he attacked Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, as “one of the biggest political hacks we have here in Washington.”

He called President Bush ” a loser,” then apologized. He said that Bill Frist, then Senate majority leader, had “no institutional integrity” because Frist planned to leave the Senate to fulfill a term-limits pledge. Then he apologized to Frist.

Most of these earlier gaffes were personal, bespeaking a kind of displaced aggressiveness on the part of the onetime amateur boxer. But Reid’s verbal wanderings on the war in Iraq are consequential — not just for his party and the Senate but for the more important question of what happens to U.S. policy in that violent country and to the men and women whose lives are at stake.

Given the way the Constitution divides warmaking power between the president, as commander in chief, and Congress, as sole source of funds to support the armed services, it is essential that at some point Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi be able to negotiate with the White House to determine the course America will follow until a new president takes office.

To say that Reid has sent conflicting signals about his readiness for such discussions is an understatement. It has been impossible for his own members, let alone the White House, to sort out for more than 24 hours at a time what ground Reid is prepared to defend.

Instead of reinforcing the important proposition — defined by the Iraq Study Group– that a military strategy for Iraq is necessary but not sufficient to solve the myriad political problems of that country, Reid has mistakenly argued that the military effort is lost but a diplomatic-political strategy can still succeed.

The Democrats deserve better, and the country needs more, than Harry Reid has offered as Senate majority leader.

davidbroder@washpost.com

Oliver North: Not Cheering Losers

By Oliver North
The Washington Times
April 29, 2007

If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is right, nearly 60 percent of Americans agree with him that the war in Iraq is already lost. And if he is correct in saying losing the war will increase Democrat majorities in future elections, it may be fair to conclude that Americans now love losers. I’m not buying any of it — and neither are the troops fighting this war.
    
In the days since Mr. Reid announced “this war is lost,” I have heard from dozens of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines that I have covered in eight trips to Iraq and two to Afghanistan for Fox News. Some who correspond with me are there now, others are home. Some are preparing to deploy again.

None of them agree with the majority leader’s assessment.
    
One e-mail from Ramadi, Iraq observed: “Good thing this guy Reid wasn’t around in 1940 when Winston Churchill promised the people of Great Britain nothing but ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat.’ “

Another, a National Guardsman, recently returned from Mesopotamia with a Purple Heart, noted that the Senate majority leader has become “al Qaeda’s most powerful ally.” At Mississippi State University, a Marine corporal I last saw along the banks of the Tigris River — now a college student — asked me, “Do those people who think we’ve lost this war have any idea what things will be like if we really do lose?” It’s an important question none of the potentates on the Potomac who just voted to withdraw U.S. troops appear willing to address.
    
According to military folklore, Napoleon kept a corporal at his side to ensure that the orders issued in battle were understandable by the troops who had to carry them out. Whether true or not, it’s time for Mr. Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to find such a corporal who will ask them such questions, for if the Democrats continue their current course, we may well lose this war — and they will have embraced defeat, and all that comes with it.
    
What would losing the war in Iraq mean? It’s a picture so dark and depressing it makes the collapse in Vietnam — 32 years ago next week — look like a Sunday school picnic by comparison. The fall of Saigon was horrific for the people of the Republic of Vietnam and their neighbors in Cambodia and Laos. More than 5 million became refugees and by the most conservative estimates — no one knows for sure — at least a million others perished.
    
For most Americans, the consequences were minimal. The vast majority of the 2.8 million of us who fought and bled there mourned the loss of 58,253 of our comrades, swallowed the bitterness of defeat, and got on with our lives. Our nation spent a few hundred million tax dollars on refugee relief and resettlement — and tried to forget what people in Mr. Reid’s party called “the long nightmare of Vietnam.”
    
But classified U.S. intelligence assessments, military contingency plans and staff studies evaluating the consequences of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, coupled with the lack of funding for political reform measures — as contained in the legislation just passed by Mr. Reid’s party — paint a far more dismal picture than anything that happened after Vietnam:
    
Within months, an immediate upsurge in vicious sectarian violence fomented by Iranian intervention on behalf of Shi’ite militias and Wahhabi-supported, al Qaeda-affiliated terror groups. As U.S. forces retreat to a half-dozen staging areas for retrograde through Kuwait and Jordan, American casualties will dramatically increase from suicide bombers seeking “martyrdom” in their victory.
    
Inside of 18 months, the fragile, democratically elected government in Baghdad will collapse, precipitating a real sectarian civil war and creation of Taliban-like “regional governments” that will impose brutal, misogynistic rule throughout the country. The ensuing flood of refuges into Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Iran will overwhelm relief organizations, creating a humanitarian disaster making what’s happening in Darfur pale by comparison.
    
The Kurds in Northern Iraq are likely to declare an autonomous region that could well result in Turkish, Iranian and even Syrian military intervention.
    
In the course of withdrawing U.S. combat brigades and support units, billions of dollars in American military equipment and ordnance will have to be destroyed or left behind. More than $40 billion in reconstruction projects for schools, health-care facilities, sanitation, clean water, electrical distribution and agricultural development will be abandoned. Plans to exploit the new West Qurna oil field in southeastern Iraq will be forsaken.
    
The governments of Kuwait, Jordan, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, intimidated by Iranian boldness in acquiring nuclear weapons, will likely insist on the withdrawal of American military bases from their territories. Such a move will jeopardize U.S. naval operations in the Persian Gulf and logistics, intelligence collection and command and control facilities supporting operations in Afghanistan.
    
As Iraq becomes a battleground for the centuries-long Sunni-Shia conflict, radical Islamic terror organizations will use the territories they control to prepare and launch increasingly deadly terror attacks around the globe against U.S. citizens, businesses and interests.
    
Mr. Reid and his cohorts in Congress who believe “this war is lost” have acted to ensure it will be. No one asked them: “If we lost, who won?” The answer should be obvious.
    
    Oliver North is the host of “War Stories” on the Fox News Channel and founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance.

Related:
Terror War Called Riskier Than Vietnam    

Bush invites Hill leaders to war talks

By Jon Ward
The Washington Times
April 28, 2007

President Bush yesterday invited congressional leaders to the White House to discuss redrafting a new war-spending bill next week, and warned Democrats he is willing to wield his veto power repeatedly to block troop-withdrawal deadlines for Iraq.
    
“I’m optimistic we can get a bill, a good bill, a bill that satisfies all our objectives, and that is to get the money to the troops as quickly as possible,” Mr. Bush said during a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the president’s Camp David retreat.
    
Speaking a day after the Democrat-led Congress passed a war bill with troop-pullout dates, Mr. Bush said he has enough support to sustain his veto as Democrats began looking for a resolution to the impasse that would appease its anti-war wing.
    
“If the Congress wants to test my will as to whether I’ll accept a timetable, I won’t accept one,” said Mr. Bush, who is awaiting the bill to formally veto it.
    
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he thinks the president is open to negotiations based on his recent statements, and called on the president to “carefully” read the bill, “stop swaggering” and sign it.
    
“He will see it fully provides for our troops and gives them a strategy worthy of their sacrifices,” the Nevada Democrat said. “Failing to sign this bill would deny our troops the resources and strategy they need.”
    
Democratic and Republican leaders agreed to meet with Mr. Bush Wednesday, and Mr. Reid has talked to Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, the minority leader, about how to move forward.
    
Senior House leadership aides have held “very preliminary” discussions with White House staffers about post-veto negotiations, although House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, has not yet reached out to Republican leaders on the issue, one official told the Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the talks were not public.
    
Mr. Bush opposes both the troop-pullout deadline, which Republicans have begun to call the “surrender date,” and the more than $30 billion in nonmilitary, domestic spending in the $124 billion measure for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    
Congress’ current bill calls for pulling troops out of Iraq as early as July 1, if the president can certify the Iraq government has made progress, or by Oct. 1.
    
Republican leaders say they would consider including benchmarks for the Iraqi government as part of the war-funding measure, although they have not said how they would be enforced.
    
Rep. Adam H. Putnam of Florida, the No. 3 Republican, said he is open to the idea of blocking further reconstruction or other aid funding to Iraq — though not military spending — if the government does not meet such requirements.

Democrats are “going to have to pull out the surrender dates — clearly those are the most unacceptable items — as well as the strings on our troops,” Mr. Putnam said. “Democrats and Republicans alike would like to see accountability, particularly on the Iraq government, and that can come in the form of benchmarks.”
    
At Camp David, Mr. Bush and Mr. Abe, meeting for the second time since the prime minister’s November election, voiced dissatisfaction with North Korea’s commitment to nuclear disarmament.
    
Mr. Abe said the state of negotiations among North Korea and five other countries, including the United States and Japan, is “regrettable.”
    
North Korea missed a mid-April deadline to start shutting its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in exchange for energy aid and security assurances.
    
The United States has been seen by some in Japan as softening its stance toward North Korea by beginning talks about removing the country from its state sponsors of terrorism list.
    
But Mr. Bush, while emphasizing the need for a diplomatic solution, said that the agreement reached in February gives the United States “a capability of more sanctions.”
    
“Our patience is not unlimited,” Mr. Bush said. “There is still time for the North Korean leader to make the right choice.”
    
Mr. Abe said that he and Mr. Bush “completely see eye-to-eye on this issue.”
    
“George and our American friends, I’m sure, are fully aware and they understand our thinking and they support our position,” Mr. Abe said.
    
Mr. Abe and his wife, Akie, left the United States for the Middle East last night, after spending the night in Washington on Thursday.
    
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that a short private meeting between the two leaders at Camp David, scheduled to last only five minutes, stretched into a 40-minute powwow in the president’s private study.
    
“Our talks were very relaxed, but they were strategic,” Mr. Bush said. “The alliance between Japan and the United States has never been stronger.”
    
Mr. and Mrs. Bush also served a lunch that included American beef hamburgers to the Japanese delegation at Camp David yesterday.
    
Mr. Bush made reference to the hamburgers in his opening remarks at the press conference, pressing Mr. Abe to allow American beef producers to export to Japan.
    
“I’m absolutely convinced that the Japanese people will be better off if they eat American beef,” Mr. Bush said, smiling.
    
Mr. Abe’s face betrayed nothing.

    • This article is based in part on wire service reports. 
    

Cheney slams Reid’s ‘the Iraq war is lost’

By S.A. Miller and Jon Ward
The Washington Times
April 25, 2007

Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for making “uninformed and misleading” statements about the war in Iraq.
    
“What is most troubling about Mr. Reid’s comments yesterday is his defeatism,” the vice president said in a rare Capitol Hill press conference.
    
“Indeed, last week, he said the war is already lost, and the timetable legislation he is pursuing would guarantee defeat.”
    
Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, fired back by calling Mr. Cheney an “attack dog,” the same slur he used to describe the vice president a day earlier.
    
“The president sends out his attack dog often, also known as Dick Cheney, and he was here again today attacking not only me, but the Democratic Caucus,” he said.
    
Mr. Reid declined to respond directly to Mr. Cheney’s criticism that Democratic opposition to the current troop surge in Baghdad was a “political calculation.”
    
“I am not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating,” Mr. Reid said.
    
He said President Bush is “in a state of denial” about the dire situation in Iraq and called on the president to sign a $124 billion war-funding bill that includes a timetable to withdrawal troops as early as July — before the 30,000-troop surge is fully implemented.
    
A little more than half of the additional troops have arrived in Baghdad since the new strategy began two months ago, said Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.
    
The president says that he will veto any legislation that dictates war strategy and that the standoff with the Democrat-controlled Congress threatens to stall the funding and forces the Pentagon to raid other military accounts to pay for the war until July.
    
“Our troops should not be caught in the middle of that discussion,” Mr. Bush said yesterday.
    
“The Democratic leadership’s proposal is aimed at restricting the ability of our generals to direct the fight in Iraq,” the president said. “They passed legislative mandates telling them which enemies they can engage and which they cannot. That means our commanders in the middle of a combat zone would have to take fighting directions from legislators 6,000 miles away on Capitol Hill.”

Mr. Bush said he would never agree to “handcuff our general.”
    
The bill approved in a conference of both chambers of Congress sets a timetable to start a troop withdrawal as early as July 1 and no later than Oct. 1. It also would end combat missions by limiting military action to training Iraqi forces, protecting U.S. bases and conducting targeted counterterrorism operations. 
   
The legislation heads to a final vote today in the House and tomorrow in the Senate.
    
A presidential veto could come as soon as next week, and then negotiations on war funding begin anew.
    
Earlier versions of the timetables passed both chambers by narrow margins, and Democrats likely cannot muster the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
    
“If the president doesn’t like what we have tried to do to help the troops … tell us what’s wrong with it,” Mr. Reid said. “Don’t do the ‘my way or no way.’ “
    
He said the president would have to learn to deal with “this pesky little thing we have in the Constitution called the legislative branch of government.”
    
Under the legislation, the troop withdrawal would commence July 1 if the Iraqi government does not meet benchmarks, including reducing sectarian violence, establishing a militia-disarmament program and enacting laws to share oil revenue.
    
If Iraqis satisfy the benchmarks, the troops would start to pull out Oct. 1 with a goal of most troops coming home by next April.
    
The Democratic strategy would limit combat operations by rolling back security patrols by the U.S. military in sectarian hot spots and by barring participation in the systematic search for insurgents — tasks typically determined by commanders on the ground and Mr. Bush as the commander in chief.
    
The new timetables appeal to anti-war House Democrats by moving up the pullout to as early as July and calling for an immediate end of U.S. involvement in military combat. It also satisfies the party’s more conservative senators by retaining that chamber’s carefully worded language that sets a “goal” for pulling out troops rather than a deadline. 
    

Reid: Bush in denial over war in Iraq

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid  said Monday President Bush is in a state of denial over Iraq, “and the new Congress will show him the way.” Holding his ground, Bush renewed his staunch opposition to timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals.

“I believe strongly that politicians in Washington shouldn’t be telling generals how to do their job,” Bush said at the White House after meeting with Army Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Iraq war. “I believe artificial timetables for withdrawal would be a mistake.”Reid, D-Nev., said the Democratic-controlled House and Senate will soon pass a war funding bill that includes “a fair and reasonable timetable” for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops. In a speech prepared for delivery later Monday, he also challenged Bush to present an alternative if, as expected, he vetoes the measure.

Reid’s office released excerpts of the speech a few hours before Bush made his comments.

The president said that Petraeus will go to Capitol Hill to tell lawmakers what’s going right in Iraq — and what’s not.

“It’s a tough time, as the general will tell Congress,” Bush said. Still, the president insisted, progress is being made in Iraq as more U.S. troops head into the country to provide security.

Reid drew criticism from Bush and others last week when he said the war in Iraq had been lost.

The Nevada Democrat did not repeat the assertion in his prepared speech, saying that “The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential.”

Congress is expected to pass legislation this week that contains a nonbinding timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by spring of 2008.

In addition, Democratic officials have said the measure will require the military to meet its own standards for equipping, training and resting troops who are sent to Iraq. Bush would be able to waive the requirements.

Officials also say the measure will set standards for the Iraqi government to meet as it tries to establish itself as a democratic society.

Bush has pledged repeatedly to reject any bill that includes a timetable for a troop withdrawal, and there is no doubt that Republicans in Congress have the votes to sustain his veto.

That would require Congress to approve a second funding bill quickly to avoid significant disruptions in military operations.

Reid’s speech blended an attack on Bush, an appeal for patience to the anti-war voters who last fall gave Democrats control, and an attempt to shape the post-veto debate.

“I understand the restlessness that some feel. Many who voted for change in November anticipated dramatic and immediate results in January,” he said.

“But like it or not, George W. Bush is still the commander in chief — and this is his war,” Reid said.

Reid said Democrats have sought Republican support for their attempts to force Bush to change course. “Only the president is the odd man out, and he is making the task even harder by demanding absolute fidelity from his party.”

Looking beyond Bush’s expected veto, he said, “If the president disagrees, let him come to us with an alternative. Instead of sending us back to square one with a veto, some tough talk and nothing more, let him come to the table in the spirit of bipartisanship that Americans demand and deserve.”

Reid noted disapprovingly that in a speech last week, Bush repeatedly said there were signs of progress in Iraq in the wake of a troop increase he ordered last winter.

“The White House transcript says the president made those remarks in the state of Michigan. I believe he made them in the state of denial,” said Reid.

Democratic officials have also said they intend to add a minimum wage increase to the war funding bill. Key lawmakers announced agreement late last week on a package of business tax breaks to accompany the boost in the wage floor, which would total $2.10 cents an hour in three equal installments.

Apart from the clash over war policy, Bush has pledged to veto the funding bill if Democrats go ahead with plans to include billions of dollars in domestic spending.

Lieberman Goes After Reid On ‘Iraq War Is Lost’ Comment

(The Politico) Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) took after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for Reid’s statement on Wednesday that the “Iraq War is lost.”

Lieberman, who has been a strong proponent of the U.S. campaign in Iraq, had this to say today:

“This week witnessed horrific terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists in Iraq, killing hundreds of innocent civilians and leading Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to declare that the war is ‘lost.’

With all due respect, I strongly disagree. Senator Reid’s statement is not based on military facts on the ground in Iraq and does not advance our cause there.

Al Qaeda’s strategy for victory in Iraq is clear. They are trying to murder as many innocent civilians as possible in an effort to reignite sectarian fighting and drive us to retreat from Iraq.

The question now before us is whether we respond to these terrorist attacks by running away as Al Qaeda hopes – abandoning the future of Iraq, the Middle East, and ultimately our own security to the very same people responsible for this week’s atrocities – or whether we stand united to fight them.

This is exactly the wrong time to conclude that we have lost the war in Iraq, or that our new strategy has failed. Instead, we should provide General Petraeus and his troops with the time and the resources to succeed.  We should not surrender in the face of barbarism.”

House GOP unites on war

By S.A. Miller
The Washington Times
April 3, 2007

House Republicans yesterday pledged to sustain a veto of the Democrats’ war bill in a letter signed by 154 lawmakers — eight more than needed — the latest show of solidarity with President Bush.
    
Congressional Democrats say Republicans are following Mr. Bush “off a cliff” by backing the increasingly unpopular Iraq war.
    
Republicans call it a principled stand.
    
“Our members are trying to figure out what is the right thing to do rather than what’s the popular thing to do,” said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican. 
    
Republicans say they are cognizant of widespread opposition to the Iraq war, as seen in a USA Today/Gallup poll last week that showed 69 percent of American adults disapprove of the president’s handling of war and 60 percent support a troop pullout by fall 2008.
    
But Republicans are united in opposition to the Democrats’ bills that tie emergency war funding to pullout timetables and to about $20 billion in domestic spending, including pork-barrel projects.
    
Their stand continues to win approval from most Republican voters, though the lawmakers say their position is not anchored by polls.
    
A poll published Saturday by Newsweek showed 64 percent of Republican voters oppose the March 2008 withdrawal deadline in the bill passed last week by the Senate.
    
“Hopefully, the most important of public policy — that is peace and war — are not determined by this week’s poll,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee.
    
“And in the long term, either we are a force for freedom in the world or we are not,” Mr. Lewis said. “Saddam Hussein was worth getting rid of. … Everybody voted to do that, including the Democrats.”
    
The letter to the president focused on the pork spending in the $124 billion war bill.
    
“This letter sends a strong message that Republicans will continue to fight for a clean troop-funding bill, without tying funding for our generals and our troops to arbitrary restrictions or pork-barrel projects,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. 

 Mr. Bush said he would veto a bill with excess domestic spending or a pullout deadline.
    
The narrow margins the bills passed by, mostly along party lines, make it unlikely Democrats in either chamber can muster the two-thirds majority needed to overturn a veto.
    
Both the House and Senate bills contained both pork spending and pullout timetables, veto-provoking elements likely to appear in the final bill to be hammered out when Congress returns from its spring break April 16.
    
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada says he will try to cut off war funding if Mr. Bush blocks a troop-withdrawal timetable.
    
By threatening to join forces with Sen. Russ Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat and longtime proponent of cutting off funding to end the war, Mr. Reid upped the ante in the standoff with the president.
    
Mr. Reid and other party leaders have resisted calls from anti-war Democrats to cut the funding to avoid criticism for not supporting troops in combat.
    
“If the president vetoes the supplemental appropriations bill and continues to resist changing course in Iraq, I will work to ensure this legislation receives a vote in the Senate in the next work period,” said Mr. Reid.
    
Mr. Reid finds Republican loyalty to the president “a little puzzling,” said spokesman Jim Manley.
    
“They are significantly at odds with the American people,” he said. “More importantly, they continue to put our troops in harm by requiring them to operate in the middle of a civil war.”
    
The USA Today/Gallup poll showed 61 percent of voters oppose cutting funds for troops. 
    

Bush mocks pork in war funding

By Joseph Curl
The Washington Times
March 29, 2007

President Bush yesterday ridiculed House and Senate lawmakers for pork-laden Iraq war funding bills that set 2008 deadlines for full U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, vowing to veto what he called “arbitrary” limits on U.S. military commanders.
    
Addressing a group of raucous ranchers at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in Washington, the president drew laughter and applause as he lampooned the competing bills now working their ways through Congress.
    
On the Senate bill, Mr. Bush noted that “there’s $3.5 million for visitors to tour the Capitol and see for themselves how Congress works.” To loud laughter from the cattlemen, he added: “I’m not kidding you.”
    
“The bill includes $74 million for peanut storage, $25 million for spinach growers,” he said to laughter. “There’s $6.4 million for the House of Representatives’ salaries and expense accounts. I don’t know what that is, but it is not related to the war and protecting the United States of America,” he said to more laughter and applause.
    
The president urged lawmakers to deliver a bill he can sign.
    
“Here’s the bottom line: The House and Senate bills have too much pork, too many conditions on our commanders, and an artificial timetable for withdrawal,” Mr. Bush said. “And I have made it clear for weeks, if either version comes to my desk, I’m going to veto it.
    
“It is also clear from the strong opposition in both houses that my veto would be sustained. Yet Congress continues to pursue these bills, and as they do, the clock is ticking for our troops in the field,” he said.
    
Democrats, however, accused the president of stubbornly sticking with a failed Iraq policy and demanded that Mr. Bush listen to the American people.
    
“Now that congressional Democrats have voted to give the troops the resources they need in combat, including a strategy to change course and get them out of a civil war, it’s up to the president to drop his stubborn veto threat so there is no delay in funding for our troops,” said Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

“He should also stop ignoring the will of the American people, put partisanship aside and work with Congress to fix his failed policies in Iraq.”
    
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada agreed.
    
“Why doesn’t he get real with what’s going on with the world?” he said after Mr. Bush’s speech. “We’re not holding up funding in Iraq, and he knows that. Why doesn’t he deal with the real issues facing the American people?”
    
But the president said that the Democratic strategy will not force him to negotiate and said the “consequences of imposing such a specific and random date of withdrawal would be disastrous.”

“Our enemies in Iraq would simply have to mark their calendars. They’d spend the months ahead plotting how to use their new safe haven once we were to leave. It makes no sense for politicians in Washington, D.C., to be dictating arbitrary timelines for our military commanders in a war zone 6,000 miles away,” Mr. Bush said.
    
“If we cannot muster the resolve to defeat this evil in Iraq, America will have lost its moral purpose in the world and we will endanger our citizens,” the president said. “If we leave Iraq before the job is done, the enemy will follow us here.”
    
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Democrats won’t back down.
    
“This Congress will hold him accountable for the conduct of this war, and we will have legislation that will give him every dollar he asks for for our troops and more, but with accountability,” she said.
    
The Senate yesterday continued debate on a bill that provides $96 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and about $20 billion for domestic spending. The bill would require Mr. Bush to begin bringing home some combat troops right away with a nonbinding goal of ending combat missions by March 31, 2008.
    
The House last week passed a similar bill by a 218-212 vote. That bill orders combat troops out by Aug. 31, 2008 guaranteeing the final spending measure negotiated with the Senate will include some sort of timetable on the war.