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Congress Hears Iraq War Update

Army Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the two top U.S. officials in Iraq, are in Washington this week to update Congress on the status of the Iraq war. Senate hearings on Tuesday gave three leading contenders for the White House a chance to question both Petraeus and Crocker and promote their approaches to the five-year-old war.

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Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) met yesterday to craft a bipartisan bill to make Iraq take on a greater share of the financial burden. Under their plan, any future U.S. money for reconstruction would take the form of a loan to be repaid, and Baghdad would have to pay for fuel used by U.S. troops and for the training of its own security forces, and make payments to the predominantly Sunni fighters in the Awakening movement taking on al-Qaeda.

"It's time, in fact long past time, the Iraqis start bearing a larger portion of the costs for this war," Collins said. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) echoed the sentiment. "Doesn't it just make sense that record-high gas prices pay for the reconstruction of Iraq, rather than the American taxpayer?" he asked.

Even Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), one of the staunchest war supporters and a key ally of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, agreed that Bush made a mistake by not making Iraqis repay U.S. costs from the start. "The best thing we can do for the people of Iraq is to make them a stakeholder in their own country," he said.

As Congress prepares to take up a new war spending bill, House Democratic defense appropriators agreed this week on three policy prescriptions: a government-wide ban on torture, a mandate that soldiers and Marines be given at least a month at home for every month in combat, and a withdrawal timetable that would be longer than past failed efforts and that would explicitly leave the details of withdrawal to military commanders.

That would force a new showdown with Bush, who has opposed all three ideas. During a meeting with congressional leaders at the White House yesterday, Bush also urged lawmakers not to pack domestic spending into the war-funding bill. But Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), an Appropriations defense subcommittee member, said war funding is likely to total $108 billion, with as much as $30 billion in domestic spending.

A White House budget document indicates that the administration is expecting Democrats to request $5.8 billion for continuing Gulf Coast hurricane relief, up to $400 million for Western wildfires, as much as $2 billion for the 2010 Census, $1 billion for nutrition for women and infants, $1 billion for food stamps and $500 million for Head Start. As much as $15 billion is expected for unemployment insurance.

Republicans quickly charged Democrats with loading pork-barrel spending onto the backs of soldiers. "The buffet is open," the House Republican Conference said.

But Democrats said the economic downturn has changed the political equation. "There is a connection between the state of our economy and Iraq and what we're spending over there," said Rep. Baron P. Hill (D-Ind.). "We need to spend more money on infrastructure, on roads and bridges that would have a stimulative effect on the economy, and we're not doing those things because of all the money we're spending in Iraq."

Staff writer Josh White contributed to this report.