Bills:HR 2642 — PL 110-252; HR 2638 — PL 110-329; S 3001 — PL 110-417

Status: Anti-war congressional Democrats and their limited number of GOP allies were a chastened lot in 2008, after having found themselves unable in 2007 to force President Bush’s hand on the Iraq War. Largely because they were short of the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican filibusters in the Senate, Democrats backed away from serious attempts to force a deadline for withdrawing most combat troops from Iraq. In the end, they settled for a handful of provisions limiting U.S. funding of programs to rebuild Iraq.

Synopsis: Bruised from the battles of 2007, Democrats began the session knowing they should not try to repeat that year’s strategy. Some resisted the retreat, if only for a while. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., looked in February 2008 as if he would press for a vote on a bill by Russ Feingold , D-Wis., calling for a withdrawal within four months. But Reid soon yanked the bill from the floor, and it never resurfaced.

Pulling back from legislative action on the war soon became the norm. A bill by Senate Democrats Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island to set a withdrawal timeline was a fixture of the 2007 debate, but it did not come up for a vote in 2008. Levin, the Armed Services chairman, kept the withdrawal language out of the defense authorization bill that emerged from his committee, and the provision never came up as a floor amendment to the bill (S 3001). Likewise, in the House, Ike Skelton , D-Mo., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, kept withdrawal language out of his defense authorization bill (HR 5658) both in committee and on the floor.

And in both chambers, the fiscal 2009 defense appropriations bill was devoid of Iraq withdrawal provisions.

The closest that war critics came to legislating troop withdrawal deadlines was during consideration of the $186.5 billion supplemental war spending bill (HR 2642) that was enacted in June. And that was not very close.

The House-passed version would have required that troop withdrawals begin in 30 days and end in 18 months. It would have set minimum standards for the training and equipping of troops prior to deployment, and required congressional approval of any U.S.-Iraq security pact governing the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq after 2008. It also would have required Iraqis to match U.S. reconstruction funds and subsidize U.S. fuel costs, among other provisions.

But the Senate did not even take up the House’s set of war policy riders. Instead, the Senate voted down a lighter version that would have expressed the nonbinding “sense of Congress” that troop withdrawals should be completed, with certain exceptions, by June 2009. The policy prescriptions rejected by the Senate also contained troop readiness standards, requirements that Iraq shoulder more of its rebuilding costs and a mandate that Congress approve a U.S.-Iraq security pact.

The only war provisions to survive in the supplemental spending bill that Congress sent to the president were a requirement that State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development reconstruction aid be matched dollar for dollar by the Iraqi government and a prohibition on the use of military construction funds to establish permanent bases in Iraq.

The only other Iraq-related language of any significance enacted in 2008 is found in the defense authorization law (PL 110-417). But nothing in it would bring U.S. military involvement in Iraq to an end any sooner than the Bush administration had planned.

The defense policy law bans Defense Department funding of Iraqi infrastructure projects, with certain exceptions. It requires the U.S. government to begin negotiating a cost-sharing agreement for U.S.-Iraq military operations. It also requires Washington to act to ensure that Baghdad pays for its own security costs. Heeding a presidential veto threat, members writing the final bill backed away from a House-passed requirement that a U.S.-Iraq security pact come to Congress for approval. Instead, they mandated a report on the subject.

Legislative Action:

House adopted war policies amendment to supplemental bill (HR 2642), 227-196, on May 15.