DEMOCRATIC DILEMMA OVER IRAQ RESPONSE !

Democratic dilemma over Iraq response
By James Coomarasamy BBC News, Washington

Democrats strongly oppose Mr Bush's plans to increase troops. President Bush's decision to send an extra 21,500 troops to Iraq has presented the Democrats with an early reminder of the limits and the potential perils of holding a congressional majority.
For, while they are - with the notable exception of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman - publicly united in their opposition to the president's troop increase, they are still feeling their way towards a unified response.
As the party with the largest number of seats in Congress, they know that there is much more riding on their decisions now than in the past.
And this provides them with a dilemma - how to influence a policy which they believe has failed without assuming ownership of it?
Resolutions
In both the Senate and the House, various pieces of legislation have been introduced.
They range from a bill that would mandate complete US troop withdrawal from Iraq within six months, to one that would place a cap on the number of troops that President Bush could send into the conflict.
But the one most likely to pass is the symbolic non-binding resolution proposed by Democratic Senators Joe Biden and Carl Levin, together with the leading anti-war Republican, Chuck Hagel.

Democrats do not want to look weak on national security.
It states that the president's plan to deploy extra troops runs against America's interests and calls for the Iraqi government to take more responsibility for security - but does not commit its backers to any legislative action.
It offers Democrats (and like-minded Republicans) the opportunity to state their opposition to the troop increase, yet does not commit them to the sort of legislative action that would block the funding for the plan - which could and undoubtedly would - be labelled weak and unpatriotic.
The Democratic Party may be in power, but its leadership remains vigilant about not appearing weak on national security, as does the cluster of Democratic senators planning to run for the White House in 2008.
Cracks and fissures
Political considerations aside, the idea of the funding cuts may be a moot point.
According to President Bush - who has been sounding defiant in his recent interviews - the money to deploy the extra forces has already been approved by Congress.
The White House says that the legislators' much-vaunted power of the purse has - in this case, at least - been overstated.
But the pressure is not just coming from the Democrats.
Following the president's decision to increase troop levels, his Republican Party has been displaying the sorts of cracks and fissures not seen in Washington for several years.
Apart from Chuck Hagel - a long-time critic of the president's Iraq policy - previously loyal senators such as Norm Coleman of Minnesota have expressed their unequivocal opposition to the Bush plan.
And it is they, after all, not Mr Bush, who face re-election battles next year.
So while the non-binding resolution may disappoint Democratic activists, who had hoped that their mid-term successes would translate into the swift withdrawal of American troops, in a system where the president remains the commander in chief it is probably the best that the party can achieve.

BBC NEWS REPORT.