WASHINGTON -- Senate votes reflecting a growing bipartisan unease with President Bush's war policies in Iraq present a dilemma for GOP House leaders who tend to toe the administration line on defense issues.
The Senate on Tuesday rejected a Democratic call for the administration to issue a timetable for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq. Instead, the GOP-led chamber inserted into its defense authorization bill an alternative proposal that prods the president to outline a strategy for "the successful completion of the mission."
Approved on a 98-0 vote, the Senate defense bill also includes provisions that would restrict the techniques used to interrogate foreign terrorism suspects and ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of anyone in U.S. custody. Those sections have drawn a veto threat from the White House.
In addition, the Senate bill contains language allowing detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to appeal to a federal court their status at enemy combatants and sentences handed down by military tribunals.
The House version of the bill does not contain the Iraq language and the provisions on the detention, interrogation or prosecution of terrorism suspects, arguably the most contentious issues in the voluminous Senate bill.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, promised a thorough review of the Senate proposals.
"We'll take a look at how the provisions mesh with existing law and we'll attempt to shape a bill that does the right things in protecting our troops and, at the same time, ensuring that detainees are treated appropriately," Hunter said Tuesday.
Hunter has been a staunch supporter of the Bush administration on the war. The House GOP leadership typically sides with the Pentagon and has indicated its opposition to the Senate-passed detainee policies, setting up a potential fight between the two chambers.
House and Senate negotiators are to meet in the coming weeks to try to work out differences in the bills, which set defense policy and authorize spending, but don't have to be passed. Separate bills actually appropriate the money.
"It is important that we succeed in Iraq ... and we're going to," Bush said during a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. "The only way that we won't succeed is if we lose our nerve and the terrorists are able to drive us out of Iraq by killing innocent lives."
The White House called the Senate legislation a positive signal because it was not a call for premature withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The measure simply reaffirms what the administration already has been doing in terms of sending progress reports to Congress and working to train Iraqi security forces, Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, said in Japan where he was traveling with Bush.
The Senate bill includes provisions that, taken together, mark an effort by the Senate to rein in some of the wide authority lawmakers gave Bush following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
