Democrats Vow to Combat Global Warming

"I understand resolutions," Bush told Sinclair television, Reuters news agency reported. "My advice to those who are speaking out against a new plan that hasn't been given a chance to work is present a plan you think will work. If disaster is not an option, what do you think will make it successful in Iraq?"

In a news briefing, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino took strong exception to Pelosi's criticism of Bush in a television interview this morning.

Asked on ABC's "Good Morning America" program whether she would move to cut off funding for U.S. troops that are part of the surge, Pelosi said, "Democrats will never cut off funding for our troops when they are in harm's way. But we will hold the president accountable. He has to answer for his war. He has dug a hole so deep he can't even see the light on this. It's a tragedy. It's a historic blunder."

Pelosi added, "The president knows that because the troops are in harm's way that we won't cut off the resources. That's why he's moving so quickly to put them in harm's way." She went on to call the war in Iraq "the president's war," adding, "He's the one without a plan."

Perino called the remarks "poisonous" and "provocative." She said, "Speaker Pelosi was arguing, in essence, that the president is putting young men and women in harm's way for tactical political reasons, and she's questioning his motivations, rather than questioning his policies. The one thing you can say about President Bush is that he's not moving forward with this new plan because he thinks it is popular; he is doing it because he thinks it is right."

At the National Press Club, Reid also criticized what he called Bush's "recent saber-rattling toward Iran." Bush warned last week that the United States would "seek out and destroy" networks providing support to anti-American militias and insurgents in Iraq, and this week the administration dispatched a second aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.

"I'd like to be clear: the president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization," Reid said. "The current use of force resolution for Iraq does not give him such authorization."

While Iran's hard-line government "poses one of the greatest threats of this new century," Reid said, the Iranian people -- two-thirds of whom are under age 30 -- "present a great opportunity for progress." He added, "Regrettably, this administration has no strategy for connecting with this generation of potential reformers."

Asked about Bush's opposition to imposing requirements related to climate change on the private sector, the new Senate majority leader held out hope that Bush would change his mind and take a new approach in his State of the Union address.

"We found the president in his first six years to be pretty stubborn," Reid said. "And we found the last few weeks as much change as has been in the first six years. He backed off from the domestic spying. He has acknowledged many mistakes in Iraq. And there are rumblings from the White House that in the speech that he's going to give on Tuesday that he's going to talk about energy and he's going to even talk about global warming. If he doesn't, it's really too bad."

Reid called on Bush to acknowledge, "as the American people long since recognized, that global warming is one of the biggest issues facing this world, if not the biggest world problem. Every other country recognizes it. America should recognize it."

Bush is coming under growing pressure to take action on global warming, with European allies urging stronger action to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Throughout his presidency, Bush has resisted imposing mandatory limits on those emissions, arguing that doing so would damage the U.S. economy and insisting that reductions can be achieved through voluntary measures.