WASHINGTON — The most serious congressional challenge to President Bush's Iraq war strategy stalled Monday when Senate Republicans blocked consideration of a resolution criticizing his plan to boost troop levels.
Leaders from both parties continued to work on a compromise that would allow Senate Democrats to bring the resolution up again. But the GOP gambit dealt a setback to the nascent campaign to take on the Bush administration's management of the war. It also may mean that leadership in challenging Bush may shift to House Democrats.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and other senior House lawmakers have said they may bring up their own resolution opposing the White House's latest war plan as soon as next week.
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, could be taking a major political risk in casting themselves as the barrier to a war debate that American voters have indicated they want Congress to engage in, according to political observers.
"We are witness to the spectacle of a White House and Republican senators unwilling to even engage in a debate on a war that claims at least one American life every day," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) in one of a series of impassioned floor speeches by lawmakers from both parties.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky guided a nearly unified GOP caucus in opposition to a procedural vote to allow formal debate on the Iraq resolution.
Needing 60 votes to overcome the GOP blockade, Democrats -- who cling to a narrow majority in the Senate -- could muster only 50. The final vote was 49 to 47, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) voted no in a move that allows him to bring the issue back up. Vermont independent Bernard Sanders voted yes.
McConnell accused the Democratic majority of blocking consideration of Republican alternatives to the resolution. "We are, in effect, being denied a fair process for this extremely important debate," he said.
But Democratic leaders were quick Monday to tag their GOP opponents as stooges for a White House that has been desperately trying to avoid an embarrassing rebuke from Capitol Hill.
The Democratic leaders had, until Monday, promoted their work with a handful of GOP lawmakers critical of the president's war plan. And support had appeared to be building for a nonbinding measure sponsored by Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) that says the Senate "disagrees" with the planned troop increase.
