Congress Seeks to Define 'Timetable' in Iraq Legislation

May 7, 2007 — -- When is a timetable not a timetable?

President Bush has said that any Iraq funding bill that contains a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal will be vetoed. So Democrats are contemplating a bill with a funding timetable of sorts, one that could be voted on as early as the end of this week.

Meanwhile, Republican leaders of the House and Senate are discussing a different sort of timetable -- a "patience" timetable, marking when GOP support for the president's unpopular war could begin to seriously erode.

House Democratic leaders face a serious challenge. They want to pass an Iraq funding bill without a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal, lest they find their bill vetoed again by Bush, yet they want to avoid losing the support of the dozens of anti-war liberals in their ranks. So -- with the goal of delivering to the president an Iraq funding bill he will sign by Memorial Day -- they aim to create a spending timetable of sorts, providing immediate funds to troops to keep operations going until the end of July and then requiring a second vote for more funding to continue after that.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, is taking the lead in drafting the bill that would provide approximately $43 billion -- 45 percent of the bill's $95.5 billion -- to prevent any disruption of military operations through the end of July or beginning of August.

The second vote, on the remaining $53 billion, would then come after the Bush administration reports on benchmarks for progress the Iraqi government has met.

Neither Democratic nor Republican leaders in the Senate believe that bill could ever muster enough support to pass the Senate; aides suggest the House and Senate will pass different bills and hope to work out the differences in conference committee.

"That's a uniquely bad idea," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate Republican leader, in a conference call with reporters today.

McConnell added that Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, had also told him they would never be able to get such a bill through the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to even vote on a bill.