Update on Iraq/Congressman Doyle

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from the good folks at Moveon.org urging me to call Congressman Mike Doyle and:

tell him that you want to bring our troops home safely this year.

Good idea - though I think I already know his position on bringing the troops home. I dropped him an e-mail a few days ago and we had a nice chat last night.

I was curious about how many calls his office had gotten recently about the war. He told me that his office in DC had received about a dozen calls in the last few days on Iraq, while the local office has received between 5-10 calls per day. Overall he estimates that he's gotten about 50 calls in the last few days on the Supplemental Funding bill now making its way through the House. He said he's not getting any grief in the calls - most are supportive as most everyone knows his position on the war (He's against it.).

Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee approved by a vote of 36-28 a deadline for troop withdrawal of 9/1/08.

In our phone conversation Doyle gave me a lesson on the realities of getting this bill through the House.

The main sticking point to the passage of the bill (at least for the Democrats) is the date for troops to leave Iraq. One the one hand, the Republicans tend to agree with the President and do not want to put any restrictions on him. On the next hand, the "Blue Dog" Democrats, while they might disagree with the President on Iraq, do not want to "micro manage" the war effort. Then on yet another hand, there's the House progressives who want a withdrawal ASAP - as in yesterday. Getting a funding bill that pleases 218 House members is what's going to be tough.

The dates for pullout range from 12/07 (from the more progressive members of the House) to either 4/08 or 9/08 (depending on the Iraqi government's progress on complying with the benchmarks set up in the bill). Push the Blue Dogs too much and they bail. Don't push the date hard enough and progressives bail. It's a very tough situation that Doyle said he's not happy about.

Though he said for the Democrats, it's a battle over tactics - not of goals. Most everyone wants the same thing, the troops out of Iraq.

The Senate, though, is going to be one high hurdle. According to the AP:

In the Senate, after weeks of skirmishing, Republicans easily turned back Democratic legislation requiring a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days. The measure set no fixed deadline for completion of the redeployment, but set a goal of March 31, 2008. The vote was 50-48 against the measure, 12 short of the 60 needed for passage.

So even if the Supplemental bill makes it through the House, it's going to be tough sledding in the Senate. And if it makes it through the Senate, there's the promised Presidential Veto.

He made his own position clear when he said he was against he war from day one and in terms of the date of troop withdrawal, "I'd vote for a date that says tomorrow."