Murtha roadblock to Iraq escalation faces criticism, obstacles
 Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is a decorated Marine, has taken the lead in arguing that the House should use its power of the purse to raise roadblocks to President George W. Bush's strategy to increase the number of US troops in Iraq.
However, his plan is facing criticism from both left and right, and may experience a major obstacle of its own to passage. Specifically, Murtha's focus on Bush's escalation has been said to diminish attention to ending the Iraq War outright. And, whatever measure he succeeds in advancing could face an uncertain future in a Senate with a narrow Democratic majority.
As Congress takes a break from last week's deliberations on non-binding resolutions in the House and Senate disapproving of the president's planned escalation in Iraq, attention is turning to measures that will have a binding effect, particularly to debate planned for next month on war spending. On this issue, Rep. Murtha has been anointed a leader in Democratic plans to block the troop hike in Iraq.
In an video placed online last week at the website MoveCongress.org, Murtha identified the policies he hoped to advance from his position as chairman of the powerful Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House of Representatives. These include:
* Certification by the individual services that troops to be deployed have sufficient equipment and training;
* Prohibiting extension of deployments by more than one year
* Eliminating the 'stop-loss' policy that prevents troops from exiting the military
* Guaranteeing soldiers one year at home before they return to Iraq
* Preventing offensive military action against Iran
* Closing Guantanamo Bay and bulldozing Abu Ghraib
* Removing US forces from the Green Zone
* Transferring resources from equipping the Iraqi military to agencies involving in reconstruction projects
Murtha explained to MoveCongress.org that if this policy were enacted, "They won't be able to do the deployment." He added that his use of the power of the purse would "force the administration to consider alternatives rather than escalating."
Speaker Pelosi told AP last week that the proposal to condition deployment on readiness had her "full support."
Subsequently, the policy has been singled out for criticism on both the left and the right.
A Democratic aide with ties to the Congressional Progressive Caucus said that guaranteeing the readiness of troops before they deployed was certainly long overdue, but worried that Murtha's approach was "tying this into the larger political dialog and debate that is still controversial, several years too late."
Moreover, the aide pointed out that the concentration on obstructing the escalation detracted from broader efforts to end the Iraq War entirely. The staff member was particularly interested to know what had happened to Murtha's earlier bill to bring about redeployment of troops from Iraq.
"Arguably it's sort of a step back, because the call for redeployment was very specific and ballsy," the Democratic staff member told RAW STORY. "I'm surprised that anti-war groups have jumped aboard this for that reason."
Republicans have also critiqued the Murtha plan. House Republican Leader John Boehner slammed the limitations on the Bush escalation in a statement last week.
"Rep. Murtha is unveiling the next step: a plan to cut off funding for troops in harm’s way by making sure the reinforcements they need to complete their mission in Iraq never arrive," the Missouri Republican said.
But House Republicans may recognize that the real battle over Murtha's policy will not be fought in their chamber of Congress. Instead, the attempt to hinder the Bush escalation may depend entirely on politics in the US Senate. In the past three weeks, efforts to pass non-binding resolutions in the Senate have failed because the Democratic majority has been too narrow to pass votes of cloture against Republican filibusters of legislation.
"The House debate on the war in Iraq took place over several days last week," said Burson Snyder, a spokeswoman for House Republican Whip Roy Blunt, in an e-mail to RAW STORY. "Moving forward, most of the action will be on the Senate side of the building, so I'd refer you over there for their strategy."
Murtha seemed to acknowledge this potentially frustrating fact in his video appearance last week with MoveCongress.org. While the spending bills cannot be filibustered in the Senate, the Pennsylvania Democrat seemed to acknowledge the challenges of harmonizing the body's legislation with what passes in the House.
"You need to work on members in the Senate to make sure they understand that when this legislation comes over, we need to pass legislation very similar with what we put on," he explained.
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