WASHINGTON — Distressed by the violence in Iraq and worried about tying their political fate to an unpopular president, some Republicans on Capitol Hill are beginning to move away from the White House to stake out a more critical position on the U.S. role in the war.
These lawmakers are advocating proposals that would tie the U.S. commitment in the war to the Iraqi government's ability to demonstrate that it is working to quell the sectarian conflict.
As Democrats start work on a new war spending bill to replace the one President Bush vetoed, at least three Republican senators who opposed the Democratic withdrawal plan said Wednesday that the new bill should include so-called benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet.
"Obviously, the president would prefer a straight funding bill with no benchmarks, no conditions, no reports," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). "Many of us, on both sides of the aisle, don't see that as viable."
Collins, who opposed Bush's troop buildup but balked at the Democratic withdrawal plan, is working on legislation that would require Iraqis to meet certain goals to receive U.S. reconstruction aid.
Most Republicans are expected to stick with the White House until September, when the U.S. military commander in Iraq plans to deliver a major assessment of the president's war strategy. Bush in January ordered the deployment of an additional 21,500 troops to try to stabilize Iraq.
But the call for establishing benchmarks with concrete consequences challenges the position of the president and GOP leaders, much as the Democrats did when they tried to link the same measurements with a troop withdrawal.
And it comes as some Republicans are calling on colleagues to take a more independent position on the war after years of deferring to the White House.
"We have to be engaged developing our own proposals and not just going along with what the executive branch is doing," said Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., a Louisiana Republican who voted against the Democratic plan to force Bush to start withdrawing troops.
Rep. Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican who has supported Bush's war strategy even as the public has turned against it, said, "The marketplace has become ripe for a new idea."
GOP leaders in the House and Senate continue to criticize the Democratic drive to force an end to the 4-year-old war. Senior Republicans have not embraced any proposals that would put them at odds with the White House, which has consistently declined to articulate any consequences for the Iraqis if they failed to meet the benchmarks.
