Iraq war funds bill set to pass Congress

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress intends to approve money on Thursday that President George W. Bush sought to continue the war in Iraq, marking a failure by Democrats to impose a timetable for withdrawing troops from an increasingly expensive and unpopular conflict.

Democrats and the White House have engaged in fierce debate since January, kicked off by Bush's request for nearly $100 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to pay for the 30,000 extra troops he is sending to the war zone.

If all goes as planned, the House of Representatives will vote first on Thursday, before sending the bill to the Senate for final passage of the measure that will bring total war spending to more than half a trillion dollars since late 2001.

Lawmakers were racing against a deadline this week to give Bush the money, just before a congressional recess and as combat money was running out.

In a strange turn, Democrats are shepherding an Iraq bill through Congress that many of them do not support.

Bush vetoed an earlier version setting an October 1 deadline for starting a troop withdrawal from Iraq and Democrats figured they could not hold up the war funds any longer with a protracted fight with the president.

Despite their majority in both chambers of Congress after November's election, Democrats have not been able to muster a two-thirds vote needed to overturn a presidential veto.

Democrats also gave up for now on their plan requiring Bush to certify U.S. troops sent to combat are adequately trained, rested and equipped, as Pentagon rules require. That provision could have put serious constraints on the military.

Instead, the new war funding bill will require only that Bush certify the Iraqi government's progress in stabilizing the country. The penalty for failure would be denying around $1.6 billion in reconstruction aid to Iraq, but even that could be waived by Bush.

RISING COSTS

Trying to put the best face on a disappointing result, Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a member of the House Democratic leadership said: "This legislation marks the beginning of the end of the Iraq war."

The new measure, he said, would bring "accountability to this war."

Emanuel's statement stood in contrast to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who called the measure a "capitulation."

One House Republican leader, Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, boasted: "We got surrender dates taken out," along with other Democratic concessions.

"That's a pretty good day's work," Putnam said.