Senate to vote on four Iraq-related bills

Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York backed legislation Tuesday to cut off funds for most combat operations in Iraq by the end of March, the first time the top two Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed a firm deadline to end the war.

The dual announcements, which were made separately, underscore the powerful influence of the antiwar movement on the 2008 Democratic primaries. All the leading Democratic presidential candidates now back a definite timetable for withdrawing American troops from Iraq.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who follows Clinton and Obama in the polls, has called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Leading Republican candidates, in contrast, support President Bush’s strategy of boosting troop levels in Baghdad and Al Anbar province to contain sectarian violence and encourage a political settlement among the country’s warring Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities.

Neither Clinton nor Obama will actually have to vote on the proposal to cut off war funding, which was introduced by Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Senators plan today to take only a procedural vote on whether to begin debate on the Feingold-Reid plan, as well as three other Iraq-related proposals.

The votes were scheduled to come ahead of key negotiations between House and Senate lawmakers over an emergency spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Both Obama and Clinton voted last month for a war spending bill that required the president to begin withdrawing troops no later than this fall and set a nonbinding goal of completing the withdrawal by spring.

Obama, who initially opposed setting a timetable for withdrawal, introduced a bill in January that set a nonbinding goal of removing combat troops by March 2008. And Clinton, long the most hawkish of the leading Democratic presidential contenders, recently endorsed a bill to revoke the 2002 resolution that authorized the war.

But until Tuesday neither had backed a firm deadline for completing a withdrawal, a key demand of the war’s most ardent opponents.

“It’s a step forward to have top presidential candidates embrace a plan to end the war,” Eli Pariser, executive director of the liberal activist group MoveOn.org, said Tuesday.

The Feingold-Reid plan introduced last month would cut off funding at the end of March for all but a limited range of military operations, which include protecting U.S. personnel, training Iraqi forces and conducting limited counter-terrorism operations.

Tuesday, Obama said in a statement that he did not believe the Feingold-Reid plan was the best answer to a war he decried for continuing “with no sign of a resolution.”

“But,” he said, “I want to send a strong statement to the Iraqi government, the president and my Republican colleagues that it’s long past time to change course.”

The statement from Clinton’s office appeared to tiptoe around the question of whether she would support the firm timetable, pledging her vote only for the “motions to allow debate.” But a spokesman later clarified that, in fact, Clinton would vote for the firmer deadline if she has the opportunity. “She supports the underlying arguments, and if they come up for a vote she will vote for them,” said Philippe Reines.

While the war was shaking up the Democratic presidential campaign Tuesday, it also continued to rile Republican lawmakers.

Virginia Sen. John W. Warner, the former Armed Services Committee chairman, introduced a plan to link reconstruction aid to progress by the Iraqi government on political benchmarks to reduce sectarian violence.

The Warner plan and the Feingold-Reid plan are among four Iraq-related measures, two sponsored by Republicans and two by Democrats, that the Senate plans to vote on today.

Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) are pushing a withdrawal timeline that makes continued military presence in Iraq contingent on the same benchmarks as Warner’s measure, although it allows the president to waive the withdrawal requirement. A similar plan without such a waiver was vetoed by Bush last month.

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) has a fourth measure that expresses support for passage of a funding bill the president will sign.

The votes will provide another test of congressional support for efforts to scale back the war. Most critically, they may indicate if more Republican lawmakers, some of whom are increasingly distressed over the president’s policies, are willing to back limitations on the administration’s conduct of the war.

Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) agreed Tuesday to a noncontroversial war spending measure that the Senate will consider Thursday. The House last week passed a version that guarantees funding through July, but requires further congressional approval for funding through September. Bush has said he would veto that bill.

The leaders of both chambers said that a final version of the measure would probably have to be worked out next week by a committee made up of lawmakers from the House and Senate.

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noam.levey@latimes.com

Times staff writers Janet Hook and Peter Wallsten contributed to this report.