GOP Looks Beyond War Measure to Fight on Funding

That is a fight Republicans appear to relish. Republicans continued to argue yesterday that the Democrats' nonbinding resolution would demoralize U.S. troops and embolden the enemy, and virtually every Republican speaking against the resolution added a warning that Democrats intend to "defund" the war.

"There is going to be a real battle some time in March over defunding our troops that are in harm's way or somehow shackling the military's ability to fight," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

When Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.) charged that the resolution offers no support for troops not yet deployed to the battlefield, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) showed just how sensitive Democrats are to the charge.

"No one ought to hide behind the troops. No one ought to come to this floor and say that this Congress, 435 of us, will not support whatever soldier or sailor or Marine is deployed to Iraq," Hoyer said angrily. "Whether it is today or tomorrow, they will have our support."

Republicans have been less successful at ruffling Democratic feathers over the issue at hand -- the deployment of additional troops. Republican leaders have put up an energetic rapid-response center to try to debunk Democratic arguments against Bush's war plan. Rank-and-file Republicans have met with national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, as well as representatives from the embassies of Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. But GOP efforts to hold their lawmakers off the Democratic resolution appeared to falter yesterday.

As Bush conducted his news conference, the House floor was turning into a fratricidal showdown in a split-screen visual that even Republicans had to admire. "It was a good strategic move," one GOP lawmaker said.

"The resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq that we passed in fall of 2002 was never intended to authorize the use of American troops to police a civil war," Ramstad said.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) lamented that "these are purely political statements, and the debate we should be having is the most apolitical subject of all -- national security in a time of peril." He then announced that he will vote for the resolution.

In the Senate, meanwhile, Republicans Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and Chuck Hagel (Neb.) threatened to block a planned week-long recess unless Democratic and Republican leaders first agree on terms for bringing to a vote a bipartisan resolution opposing the troop buildup.