Troop surge splits state’s delegation

Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007 | 7:01 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Despite renewed claims of bipartisanship in Congress, Nevada's congressional delegation divided along party lines over President Bush's expected announcement tonight of plans to increase troop levels in Baghdad.

Voters swept Republicans from power in Congress last fall largely over the war issue, as the American death toll mounted with no victory in sight. Now, with Democrats in control on Capitol Hill and Bush expected to announce a plan to add as many as 20,000 troops to help stabilize the country, Congress is poised for its first broad debate over the war that began nearly four years ago.

Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, are considering using the power of the purse to stop Bush from escalating a conflict they say most Americans want to end.

Some Republicans also are questioning the need to raise troops levels. Two of Nevada's three Republicans in Congress, however, say they are inclined to support a troop surge, saying they believe it offers a path to victory.

"The president is laying out a plan, the principles of a plan, that has a chance to work," said Republican Sen. John Ensign, who was at the White House on Monday for a briefing on Bush's plan.

Ensign said the alternative that some Democrats favor - using congressional power over the budget to cut off funds for an escalation of troops - "would be a complete and utter disaster I do not think that allowing the Congress to micromanage a war is in any way, shape or form a good idea."

Legal scholars, congressional Republicans and some Democrats have questioned whether Congress can stop an escalation of a war, which that body has already approved, saying it would tread on the president's constitutional authority as commander in chief.

But constitutional law expert Doug Kmiec of Pepperdine University said Democrats are well within their authority to use the purse strings to rein in the president - even if that power has never been fully tested. "Can Congress cut off funding? With no question it can," Kmiec said.

In Lebanon and Vietnam, Congress put limits on the president's ability to wage war, according to a memo from the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, encouraging Democrats to make the case.

But Kmiec said that even after Congress in 1973 passed legislation to halt President Richard Nixon's bombing of Cambodia in the Vietnam War - which Nixon promptly vetoed - Congress never took the next step of attempting to override the veto and have the issue decided in court. Instead Congress and the White House reached a compromise to stop the bombing later that summer, averting a constitutional showdown.

Reid insists the troops on the ground "will get everything they need." But when Bush sends up his request for new funding for the war effort, "there are things we're going to take a look at."

"We could cap the number of troops," he said Monday. "It's something we'll take a look at. Everything's going to be on the table."

Reid stunned many supporters when he told an interviewer in December that he was willing to go along with Bush on a two- to three-month surge in troop levels. Some saw it as Democrats' historic inability to stand up to a president on national security issues.

Reid said he changed his mind two days later after hearing from military commanders on the ground who opposed the escalation.

"They said it was a bad idea, so I got off that quickly," he said Monday. "I think Democrats would be more subject to criticism if they did nothing. We have to tell the president he's doing this wrong; we've got to start bringing our folks home."

Republican Rep. Jon Porter said he is willing to support Bush so long as the surge is part of a strategy to end the war. On Christmas, during his third trip to Iraq, military commanders convinced him that more troops could help them stabilize the country, Porter said.

"I would bring in additional troops and I would support additional troops on a short-term basis," he said, adding that parts of Baghdad are thriving with shops open and kids playing ball - at least that was the view from the air. On the ground, he did not leave the military's well-protected Green Zone.

"America's very uncomfortable," Porter said. "I do believe they want it over with as quickly as possible, and I think this is one of the ways to have it done."

Nevada's newest member of Congress, Republican Rep. Dean Heller, is among those in his party still not convinced about the president's strategy.

"There are questions that need to be answered before we take this too much further: What exactly are these 20,000 troops going to do, what's their mission, what's their goal?" Heller said Tuesday.

Deployment that lasts beyond one year is not his definition of a "surge," he said. "I probably haven't bought into this yet As far as I'm concerned my position is pretty open."

Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley said she cannot at this point support cutting off funds for sending new troops to Iraq. She also said she is not sure Congress could take that step without harming troops already in the country.

Berkley, however, said that Bush owes the country an explanation. "Before we add more troops to what has become a debacle on the ground, the president ought to come to Congress and the American people with a proposal and a strategy and set forth where we are going, how we will get there, what are the expectations, what is his definition of victory?"

Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com.