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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (330062)	3/23/2007 1:42:26 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 1573556

Divided House approves Iraq withdrawal bill in challenge to Bush Canadian Press Published: Friday, March 23, 2007 Article tools WASHINGTON (AP) - A sharply divided House voted Friday to order President George W. Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq next year, a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress's boldest challenge yet to the administration's policy. Ignoring a White House veto threat, legislators voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September 2008, or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress. "The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif). "The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not." The vote, echoing clashes between legislators and the White House over the Vietnam War four decades ago, pushed the Democratic-led Congress a step closer to a constitutional collision with the wartime commander-in-chief. Bush has insisted that legislators allow more time for his strategy of sending nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to work. The roll call also marked a triumph for Pelosi, who laboured in recent days to bring together a Democratic caucus deeply divided over the war. Some of the party's more liberal members voted against the bill because they said it would not end the war immediately, while more conservative Democrats said they were reluctant to take away flexibility from generals in the field. Republicans were almost completely unified in their fight against the bill, which they said was tantamount to admitting failure in Iraq. "The stakes in Iraq are too high and the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families too great to be content with anything but success," said Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) The bill marks the first time Congress has used its budget power to try to end the war, now in its fifth year, by attaching the withdrawal requirements to a bill providing US$124 billion to finance military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this year. Excluding the funds in the House-passed bill, Congress has so far provided more than $500 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including about $350 billion for Iraq alone, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. More than 3,200 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since war began in March 2003. canada.com