WASHINGTON — Fresh from passing the first timelines to bring home U.S. troops from Iraq, congressional Democrats now face the daunting task of reconciling critical differences between a Senate withdrawal plan passed Thursday and one approved by the House last week.
The Senate's timeline -- part of the $123-billion war spending bill that passed 51 to 47, largely along party lines -- would require President Bush to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days of enactment and would set March 31, 2008, as a nonbinding "goal" to have most combat forces out of Iraq.
The House plan would require the president to begin withdrawing troops as soon as July 1 and to complete the process no later than August 2008.
The measures have prompted repeated veto threats from President Bush, who says he won't sign legislation that limits what military commanders can do in Iraq.
Democratic lawmakers are gearing up for a high-stakes showdown with the president.
But they must first reach a compromise among themselves, a process that will play out over the next several weeks. Lawmakers from both chambers must draw up language that wins House and Senate approval before the resulting bill can go to the president's desk.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) have played down the differences between their plans as they present a united front against the White House.
Reid insisted Thursday that the two Democratic-controlled chambers would have few problems reaching a compromise that could pass the House and Senate.
"We don't have a gap to overcome," he said. "The ball is in the president's court. That's who has to make the next move."
There were already signals of the potential complications that lay ahead, however.
Freshman Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) -- a vehement war critic who was among the last liberals to get behind the House measure last week -- said Thursday that he would oppose any bill that did not retain the House's firm timelines.
"The timelines and the deadlines are the only thing that got me to support it," said Ellison, who has called for a quick conclusion to the war. "And even then, that was a stretch."
Under the House plan, Bush would have to certify by July 1 that the Iraqi government was making substantial progress in meeting benchmarks to achieve political reconciliation and reduce sectarian violence. If the president did not, withdrawal would begin immediately and most U.S. combat troops would have to be pulled out by the end of the year.
