House panel votes to pull out of Iraq - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

House panel votes to pull out of Iraq

House Democrats, who have widely divergent views about the war in Iraq, managed Thursday to stick together long enough to pass a $124 billion wartime funding bill that sets a timetable for withdrawal of combat troops, boosts spending on military and veterans’ health care programs, and orders the Army’s flagship hospital to remain open indefinitely.

The bill passed the House Appropriates Committee by a 37-27 vote, with Democrats coming together to approve a plan that uses funding as a way to restrict and ultimately end U.S. combat operations in Iraq.

There are two sets of restrictions, one involving the troops and the second involving the mission.

For the troops, the bill sets three new limits: No unit could deploy to Iraq unless it is fully trained and equipped, no deployments would be extended beyond 365 days for the Army and 210 days for the Marine Corps, and no Army or Marine Corps member could be redeployed without enough time at home — 365 days for the Army and 210 days for the Marine Corps. None of those restrictions applies to the Navy or Air Force.

For the overall mission, the bill calls for the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq beginning as early as July 1 of this year and no later than March 1, 2008. The earlier withdrawal would apply if President Bush is unable to certify that Iraq is making substantial progress in meeting political and security benchmarks for improvement.

Both sets of restrictions are controversial, and have led to a veto threat from the White House that leaves doubt hanging over the bill’s fate.

Keeping Walter Reed Army Medical Center open, instead of closing it by 2011 as ordered by a base-closing commission, is a bipartisan matter. Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., was the first appropriations committee member to push for the hospital to stay open, but Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the defense appropriations subcommittee chairman, offered the amendment ordering the closure.

LaHood said he never understood why a base closing and realignment commission decided in the first place to shut the doors of the Army’s top hospital. New problems with the condition of outpatient barracks are an example of what happens at a facility that is slated to close, he said.

The Murtha-LaHood language prohibits any money being spent to close the hospital, either from this bill or from any future bill, unless Congress specifically allows the closure. LaHood said he didn’t know when or if the hospital could close, but he did not think closing it during a war is wise.

“We can decide later if Walter Reed will be closed,” he said.

The bill also includes $1.7 billion increases in the military and veterans’ health care budgets, $3.1 billion to pay for base-closing-related expenses that Congress was supposed to approve last year, $2.3 billion to provide additional equipment and training for troops and $2.3 billion to begin paying for the fielding and housing of new Army and Marine personnel who will be added to the active-duty rolls in the next few years.

Republicans complained that Democrats padded the bill with extra items just to secure votes. “It literally promises something to everybody,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., the former appropriations committee chairman and now the committee’s senior Republican.

Murtha, the chief architect of the military-related provisions and of the language restricting the use of combat troops, said there is a lot in the bill because a lot is needed. “Every combatant commander has told us the military is less ready today than before we went to war,” he said. “This is what we are trying to address.”