Congress casts wary eye on Obama's Afghanistan buildup

By William Douglas and David Lightman / McClatchy Newspapers (MCT Campus)

published: Tue, 1 Dec, 2009

WASHINGTON — A wary, divided Congress raised serious questions Tuesday about President Barack Obama's new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, as well as its timetables and his plans to pay for the troop buildup.

Obama's biggest challenge will be his fellow Democrats, who control 60 of the Senate's 100 seats and 258 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Worried about retaining their majority in next November's elections at a time when polls show the public turning against them and the war in Afghanistan, they are by no means ready to throw their support behind Obama's plan to escalate the U.S. war effort.

"'Til there's a full debate, we don't know where individual senators will end up," said Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., a moderate. "There's a ways to go. Just as the president engaged in a thorough review, Congress has to do the same."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., voiced similar thoughts. "I'll reserve judgment until I hear ... testimony," he said. Top administration officials are to testify before congressional committees Wednesday and Thursday.

More strident anti-war lawmakers weren't as reticent. Several said they were contemplating ways to derail or slow the process for funding a 30,000 U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said he intended to pursue all options to block funding for the escalation. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she was looking for more co-sponsors for her bill to prohibit taxpayer funds from being spent to send more combat troops to Afghanistan.

Said liberal Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent: "My view is, in the middle of a severe recession, with 17 percent of our people unemployed or underemployed, with one-quarter of the kids in this country living on food stamps, I am not sympathetic to spending $100 million a year on Afghanistan, plus what we're spending in Iraq."

Republicans generally gave Obama high marks for deciding to send 30,000 more troops.

"If you would have told me a year into the president's administration (that) he would have doubled our presence in Afghanistan ... plus not reduce our troops meaningfully in Iraq ... I would have a hard time believing it," Dan Senor, who was a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq under former President George W. Bush, said in a conference call arranged by the Republican National Committee. "So I'm pleasantly surprised."

That said, several Republican lawmakers had a serious reservation about Obama's plan: They disliked setting a timetable for beginning to withdraw troops.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he had "deep concerns about setting a date certain," while Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said, "It's like saying you're going to play the first three quarters with your first team and then take them off the field."

McCain said that Obama should order U.S. forces to leave only when the mission had achieved success. When McCain was asked how he defined success there, he said, "The same way we defined success in Iraq: Put down the opposition, and make them take a knee."

Some Democrats agreed.

"I never have supported that and I never will. You don't tell the enemy when you're leaving," said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

Congress' main weapon for stopping, or changing, the troop buildup is its control over funding. It has three alternatives to pay for the troop increase: raising taxes, adding to the federal budget deficit or cutting spending on other programs.

Republicans want to slash spending; McCain proposes cutting scheduled 2010 increases in discretionary spending. He said his plan would free $60 billion, well above the estimated $40 billion cost of Obama's proposal.

A plan to pay for the troop increase with a surtax on income is gaining popularity in the House, however, particularly among Democratic leaders. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., and Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson of Connecticut are pushing the idea.

"This is a shared-sacrifice act," Larson said. "The only people we're asking to sacrifice in this war effort are men and women who serve our armed services. ... They deserve the same kind of commitment at home."

Hoyer wouldn't rule out a surtax.

"I generally am in favor of paying for what we do," he said.

He also left the door open for an emergency-spending bill, however. His general preference to pay-as-you-go "is complicated by the economic crisis," he said.

Wariness from Republicans and conservative Democrats also could complicate the outlook for a surtax.

"It's a bad idea," Nelson said. House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., also opposes it.

The emergency funding approach also is controversial, however. The federal deficit hit $1.4 trillion last year, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects it to reach that record figure again in fiscal 2010.

The most politically viable approach is to consider a "supplemental appropriation," an emergency spending bill that would increase the deficit.

The Bush administration used this device repeatedly to help pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After Obama used it in April, his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said flatly: "This will be the last supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan." He said that Obama's vow to change the way Washington worked required war costs to be included in the regular budget.