The House of Representatives has begun going where the Senate feared to tread – a debate over the Iraq war — as sectarian strife in Baghdad further escalated with a series of blasts in a Shiite market that killed 70 people.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the way today as the Democratic-controlled House embarked on the debate, declaring that the public has decided that President Bush’s policies “have not worked, will not work and must be changed.”
A vote is expected by Friday on a nonbinding resolution that opposes the president’s decision to “surgeâ€? the number of troops in Iraq while pledging support for the troops already there.
“I’m just not convinced that deploying 20,000 additional troops is going to resolve anything favorable for us,� said Representative Howard Coble, a North Carolina Republican, who estimated that 20 to 25 Republicans would vote for the resolution, although other estimates ran higher.
A similar measure was dead on arrival in the Senate last week after Republicans outfinessed Democrats and threatened to filibuster it.
Click here to read the text of the resolution. And here for more on the debate.