Politics are permeating election-year debates on Iraq in the House and Senate, where Republicans and Democrats alike are carefully staking out their positions on the increasingly unpopular war.
Seeking an advantage, House Republicans aim to force Democrats to go on record supporting President Bush's wartime policies by staging a vote as early as Thursday on a GOP resolution that praises U.S. troops and rejects setting "an arbitrary date" for withdrawing them from Iraq.
"The fundamental question in this debate is: Are we going to confront the threat of terrorism and defeat it, or will we relent and retreat and hope the problem goes away?" House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, providing a preview of the possible GOP line of attack should Democrats oppose the resolution. |