House members debate Iraq war policy

WASHINGTON -- House members fiercely debated Iraq war policy Tuesday in an emotional and historic floor faceoff over a conflict that Speaker Nancy Pelosi lambasted as a U.S. commitment with "no end in sight."\nThe confluence of arguments came as the war nears the four-year point with over 3,100 American deaths, billions spent and lawmakers grappling what position to take on President Bush's decision to send an additional 21,500 troops into battle.\n"The American people have lost faith in President Bush's course of action in Iraq and they are demanding a new direction," said Pelosi, a California Democrat who became the first female House speaker after her party took control of both the House and Senate in the fall elections.\nA resolution putting the House on record as against Bush's expansion of troop strength was expected to be approved by week's end. It was nonbinding, but nevertheless unmistakable in its message. "No more blank checks for President Bush on Iraq," Pelosi declared.\nCountered White House press secretary Tony Snow: "Members of the House and members of the Senate have the freedom to go ahead and write their resolutions, and do what they want with them. The one thing we do expect is, we do expect those who say they're going to support the troops, to support them."\nRepublicans, now the minority party on the Hill for the time in 12 years, issued impassioned warnings of the consequences of undermining the president's policies in Iraq. "We will embolden terrorists in every corner in the world. We will give Iran free access to the Middle East," said Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "And who doesn't believe the terrorists will just follow our troops home?"\nBoehner teared up before reporters as he listened to Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, describe being a prisoner of war in Vietnam and learning of U.S. protests back home.\nHouse Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., insisted that they had no intention of impeding the mission of those in Iraq. "There will be no defunding of troops in the field. There will be no defunding which will cause any risk to the troops," he told a news conference.\nThe House rejected, on a 227-197 vote, a Republican procedural attempt to force a vote on a proposal that would have barred Congress from cutting off funding for American troops in harm's way.\nDemocrats expressed confidence the measure would prevail and said they would attempt to use it as the opening move in a campaign to pressure Bush to change course and end U.S. military involvement in the war. More than 3,100 U.S. troops have died in nearly four years of fighting.\nDemocrats called on several freshmen who served in the military to make their argument against further commitments in Iraq.\nRep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., a captain in the Army 82nd Airborne, said that "three years after I left Iraq, Americans are still running convoys up and down Ambush Alley and securing Iraqi street corners."\nBut Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., stressed that "we go to war to win, we go to war with a mission." He said "we dishonor the lives of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice if we in fact abandon that mission. ... We have a duty to pursue nothing less than victory."\nRepublicans conceded that the measure was headed for approval and said a few dozen members of the GOP were likely to break ranks and vote for it.