Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007 | 7:22 a.m.
WASHINGTON - Once again, it's all about Iraq.
After spending a week's recess at home, members of Congress return to Washington with the debate over the war just about where they left it at the top of the agenda on Capitol Hill.
Nevada's lawmakers spent the week making their annual speeches to the state Legislature in Carson City, meeting with constituents. Some celebrated the federal government's decision to scrap the Divine Strake blast at the Nevada Test Site.
But one day into the recess Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was calling the war worse than Vietnam, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer on a Sunday morning talk show that Iraq is "the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country."
By the time Democratic presidential hopefuls landed in Nevada for the first debate, Iraq dominated many discussions.
Republican Rep. Dean Heller stayed on offense for his party, charging that none of the candidates "spoke realistically about how best to achieve victory in Iraq."
By week's end, it was clear that Congress would again be turning its attention to Iraq when members return.
Senate Democrats, led by Reid, are entertaining new resolutions to bring to the floor once the Senate resumes, including one to rescind the authority Congress gave President Bush to launch the invasion in 2002.
Reid seems unfazed by Senate Republicans' pledge to continue blocking debate on such resolutions, as they did before Congress recessed. Republicans want a chance to be heard on their amendment supporting full funding for the troops.
The numbers, however, have been moving toward the Democrats. Seven Republicans joined Democrats in the failed resolution Feb. 17 that expressed disapproval with President Bush's planned 21,000-troop surge. The measure fell four votes shy of the 60 votes needed. But weeks earlier a similar resolution drew support of just two Republicans.
"Things are moving in the right direction," Reid spokesman Jon Summers said Friday. "At some point they can only block for so long when the American people are demanding a change."
Polls continue to be on the Democrats' side as Americans grow weary of the war with its fifth anniversary approaching. The House is considering separate proposals, and Bush is about to ask for another $100 billion in war funds in the coming weeks.
As Democrats planned their next move, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gathered reporters for a conference call Friday afternoon to suggest that no Democratic resolution would go forward without a vote on Republicans' amendment for troop funding support, which he knows many Democrats would support.
"I think the vast majority of my conference is very comfortable on insisting on a fair debate - they get theirs, we get ours," McConnell said.
And so the debate, or lack of one, will continue.
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