http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...na-pol-us-iraq
WASHINGTON — Defying a fresh presidential veto threat, the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass legislation within days that requires the beginning of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq by Oct. 1 and sets a goal of a complete pullout by April 1, 2008, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday.
In remarks prepared for delivery, Reid said that under the legislation, the troops that remain after next April 1 could only train Iraqi security units, protect U.S forces and conduct "targeted counter-terror operations."
Reid spoke a few hours after President George W. Bush said he will reject any legislation along the lines of what Democrats will pass. "I will strongly reject an artificial timetable (for) withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job."
The president made his comments to reporters at the White House as he met with senior military leaders, including his top general in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.
Taken together, Reid's speech and Bush's comments inaugurated a week of extraordinary confrontation between the president and the new Democratic-controlled Congress over a war that has taken the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
Under an agreement by Democratic leaders, the final bill could trigger the withdrawal of U.S. troops as early as July 1 if Bush could not certify that the Iraqi government was making progress in disarming militias, reducing sectarian violence and forging political compromises.
The bill also would withhold foreign aid money should the Iraqi government not meet certain benchmarks.
Reid drew criticism from Bush and others last week when he said the war in Iraq had been lost.
He did not repeat the assertion in his prepared speech, saying that "The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential."
Reid said that in addition to the timetable, the legislation will establish standards for the Iraqi government to meet in terms of "making progress on security, political reconciliation and improving the lives of ordinary Iraqis who have suffered so much."
The measure also would launch diplomatic, economic and political policy changes, Reid said.
Reid had made similar comments at a White House meeting last week among Bush and top lawmakers, and this time, the president's spokeswoman fired back. She said it was Reid who was ignoring reality, not the president.
Reid is in denial about the vicious nature of the enemy and about the U.S.-led plan to provide more security in Iraq, said deputy press secretary Dana Perino. "He's also in denial that a surrender date _ he thinks it is a good idea. It is not a good idea. It is defeat. It is a death sentence for the millions of Iraqis who voted for a constitution, who voted for a government, who voted for a free and Democratic society."
Negotiators for the House of Representatives and the Senate arranged a meeting to ratify the timetable that Reid laid out. The demand for a change in course will be attached to a funding bill that is needed to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Reid said Bush was in "a state of denial" over the war, and likened him to another commander in chief four decades ago. "I remember when President Johnson, trying to save his political legacy, initiated the first of many surges into Vietnam in 1965," he said.
Reid said thousands more U.S. troops died in Vietnam as a result. Now, he said, Bush "is the only person who fails to face this war's reality - and that failure is devastating not just for Iraq's future, but for ours."
Reid also challenged Bush to present an alternative if, as expected, he vetoes the Democratic legislation.
The president said that Petraeus will go to Congress to tell lawmakers what is going right in Iraq _ and what is not.
"It's a tough time, as the general will tell Congress," Bush said. Still, the president insisted, progress is being made in Iraq as more U.S. troops head into the country to provide security.