WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a vote charged with election-year politics, the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a symbolic resolution that wrapped the Iraq conflict into the war on terrorism and rejected a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal.
The House voted 256-153 largely on party lines for the resolution that sparked two days of emotional debate as Republicans sought to depict Democrats as weak on terrorism while Democrats decried President George W. Bush's policies that they said led to chaos in Iraq and detracted from the fight against al Qaeda.
"Will we fight or will we retreat? That's the question that's posed to us," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. "Defeating repressive radical terrorists and their allies is our defining task of the 21st century."
But in impassioned debate, Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), a Pennsylvania Democrat, erupted in anger at Republicans who advocated continuing the fight in Iraq.
Murtha, a Vietnam veteran and defense hawk who rocked the Congress last year when he turned against the war, said it was "easy to stay in an air-conditioned office and say I'm going to stay the course." He added, "That's why I get so upset when they stand here sanctimoniously and say we're fighting this thing. It's the troops that are doing the fighting."
Bush has seen his popularity plummet this year largely because of the war, and Republicans are hoping to avoid being dragged down by the conflict in November elections that will determine control of both chambers of Congress.
The Senate prepared to debate Iraq next week after Republicans forced a vote on Thursday on Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry's amendment to withdraw U.S. forces by this year's end.
With Democrats blasting Republicans for the maneuver, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to put aside the measure which allows Kerry to bring it up again next week for full debate.
A large group of Senate Democrats also was working on an amendment to the defense policy bill for a troop withdrawal starting this year, but without a deadline for completion.
In the House, many Democrats called the Republican resolution a sham that tried to connect the Iraq war with the September 11 attacks, even though no such links have been established.
The nonbinding resolution that has no force of law declares that the United States will prevail in the war on terrorism and declares that it is not in the national interest to "set an arbitrary date to withdraw or redeploy U.S. forces" from Iraq.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California called it "an affirmation of the president's failed policy in Iraq."
But Republicans portrayed a vote against their resolution as a vote against winning the war on terrorism.
This vote is "sending a message about what they believe America's capable of doing, and about whether the global war on totalitarianism is worth fighting," said House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri.
With mounting public discontent over the war that so far has caused 2,500 U.S. military deaths, some Republicans acknowledged errors were made, but that the United States must stay to stabilize Iraq.
"To be sure mistakes have been made in Iraq, from pre-war intelligence to de-Bathification, to the destructive events of Abu Ghraib, but these mistakes should not stop us from our goal," said Rep. Charles Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican.
"There's no question Iraq is a petri dish for terrorists now," said Republican Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia.
Forty-two Democrats crossed lines to vote for the resolution, while three Republicans voted against it.
