Senate sets Iraq withdrawal date
By Toby Harnden in Washington
Last Updated: 7:29pm BST 26/04/2007
A showdown between the White House and Congress was looming today after the US Senate narrowly passed a bill compelling President George W Bush to withdraw American troops from Iraq by next April.
Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said the vote, which tied $124.2 billion funding for the war to the withdrawal timetable, “sets us on a new course, away from a civil war with no end in sight toward a responsible phased redeployment”.
Mr Bush has vowed to veto any bill which contains what he calls a “surrender date”, a move that will spark a major showdown with the Democratic-led Congress.
Before the bill was passed by 51-46, Mr Reid said: “If the president refuses to change direction, America risks being bogged down in Iraq for years, not months.
“For a president that took the country to war under false pretences, he now needs the courage to admit his policies have failed and work with us to bring the war to a responsible end. This bill gives him a path forward.”
The White House tonight reaffirmed the president’s intention to veto and accused Democratic leaders of dragging their feet over the debate so that it would fall on the fourth anniversary of his speech on May 1st 2003, in which Mr Bush declared in front of a “mission accomplished” banner that “major combat operations” were at an end.
The vote came after the senior American military commander in Iraq warned that the war was “exceedingly complex and very tough” and that the US challenge in the country “might get harder before it gets easier”.
Gen David Petraeus said that Iraq had become the “central front” for al-Qa’eda, which “remains a formidable foe with considerable resilience and a capability to produce horrific attacks”.
In addition “extremist militias in Iraq also are a substantial problem and must be significantly disrupted”.
But he also emphasised that there had been “some notable successes in the past two months” and that US forces were at the “relatively early stages of our new effort” – a reference to Mr Bush’s “surge” policy of increasing troop levels.
The Iraqi government, he said, was dysfunctional and Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi premier, had a very difficult task.
“He’s not the Tony Blair of Iraq. He does not have a parliamentary majority.
“He does not have his ministers in all of the different ministries. They are from all kinds of different parties. They sometimes sound a bit discordant in their statements to the press and their statements to other countries. It’s a very, very challenging situation in which to lead.”
Gen Petraeus acknowledged that there was an “American clock” which might limit military options in Iraq.
“That clock is moving and it’s moving at a rapid rate of speed, and it reflects the frustration, impatience, disappointment, anger, and a variety of other emotions people feel about the pace in Iraq.”