Having dug in, Porter now sees shift on Iraq

By Lisa Mascaro

Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2007 | 7:12 a.m.

WASHINGTON - From the time he took office, Nevada Republican Rep. Jon Porter has not wavered in his support for the war strategy in Iraq.

Not when insurgents attacked the military base he was visiting in Iraq in 2005. Not when he was confined to the well-protected Green Zone during a Christmas trip in 2006. Not as anti-war activists ran TV and radio ads against his position this summer.

Porter has been a target of war protesters all year, but when the Democratic-controlled Congress tried last week to pass legislation to change course in the war, Porter easily voted no.

His office said he didn't get a single phone call urging him to do otherwise.

Porter's hardened position showcases the turn of events in Washington as the year draws to a close. Democrats started the session with a voter mandate to end the war. They swept last fall's elections with their promise to bring a new direction.

But any momentum the Democratic-controlled Congress once had to change course has long receded. The tipping point that was supposed to come this fall, with a report on President Bush's troop surge, tipped the other way. Republicans increasingly think they were right to have supported Bush's strategy. A small number of troops have started coming home.

Last week, the Iraq votes came and went - more like a well-rehearsed script than the congressional drama they were just a few months ago.

The vote tally was as expected: The House approved the legislation, which would have tied $50 billion in supplemental war spending to a troop withdrawal plan. The bill died in the Senate, where Democrats have a slimmer margin.

Porter barely won reelection against an anti-war candidate in his politically split district last fall. But he remains critical of the Democrats' attempts to end the war.

"On Thanksgiving eve the liberals decided to play one more game with the families of the military," Porter said in an interview. "The liberals' plan is: We've lost, we should quit and come home. That's what they're telling the moms and dads of those in uniform - the only solution is to cut the funding."

Republican leadership departed for the holiday break complaining about the 63 votes Democrats have conducted on Iraq this year.

But anti-war activists believe Republicans' steadfastness on Iraq will come with a price.

The news coming out of Iraq is not as good as it is made out to be, critics say. Even with a reduction in bombing attacks, troops continue to be killed and injured, and Iraqis continue to be displaced.

The point of the surge was to stabilize the violence so the government could take hold. "The simple truth is there's been absolutely no political progress and there's no sign that's changing," said Moira Mack, spokeswoman for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, the umbrella organization of the anti-war movement.

"Republicans are really signing their own political death warrant by refusing to end the war," Mack said. "Republicans are going to have to take their blinders off and start listening to the public or face their losses in 2008."

Polls show Americans remain opposed to the war and want troops to come home.

But when asked during a Republican leadership news conference how the Iraq votes would play out in 2008, Nevada Sen. John Ensign, who is in charge of the committee to elect Republicans to the Senate, said voters would essentially take his party's side.

"The American people, I think, would rather have Gen. Petraeus running the war than members of Congress," Ensign said, referring to the Army commander in charge of Iraq. "We cannot, as 535 of us, set timelines. We cannot put strategy on the ground. But that's what they're trying to do with putting strings on the funding."

In many ways, the war funding debate unfolding now is the high-stakes pressure anti-war activists thought they were going to get when the Democrats took over Congress.

Democrats are refusing to approve additional money for the war without some condition that Bush will change the mission and start bringing troops home. The military will run out of war money in early 2008. It is perhaps the toughest stance Democrats have taken since Bush vetoed their bill for a troop withdrawal in spring.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said last week that Bush "for damn sure is not entitled to have this money given to him just with a blank check."

Mack said Americans have been frustrated by Congress and anti-war groups have retreated from the high-profile campaigns they waged this summer. But "this hard line is exactly what the public has been looking for. They really have been looking for Congress to stand up to President Bush."

Porter is planning his fifth trip to Iraq. He hopes to be there within the first few months of 2008 - perhaps as the war funding debate begins anew. These trips help him on the campaign trail, where he can pull from personal experience to explain his position.

On virtually every trip, he has returned home optimistic the war effort can be a success.

He has returned with descriptions of children playing soccer, shops open for business. As reports show some improvements in Iraq, he said, "these are the things I have been talking about - these positive signs we are having."

He concedes the government in Iraq is "dysfunctional" and that bringing democracy to Iraq, one of the goals of the invasion, may be a work in progress. "It's not going to be perfect," he said.