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WASHINGTON - House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi today vowed aggressive scrutiny of US President George W Bush's expected plan to send more US troops to Iraq, but stopped short of saying Congress would block funding for the White House strategy.
The California Democrat, newly installed in her leadership role after Democrats won control of Congress, said Bush would not have a "blank check" to pursue new policies in Iraq that have already drawn fire from Democratic leaders.
"If the president wants to add to this mission, he is going to have to justify it. And this is new for him because up until now the Republican Congress has given him a blank check with no oversight, no standards, no conditions," Pelosi said on the CBS programme Face the Nation.
Bush, who has launched a high-level overhaul of his Iraq team, is expected to outline a shift in course in the unpopular war this week with what could be a short-term increase of up to 20,000 US troops to try to restore stability to Baghdad.
Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, urged Bush in a letter last week to reject a troop increase and begin a phased withdrawal from Iraq.
Today, Iraq National Security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told CNN's Late Edition that the Iraqi government would accept higher US troop levels. "We will support them," he said.
But Sen. Joseph Biden, the Delaware Democrat who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he has drafted a Senate "resolution of disapproval" to try to dissuade Bush from seeking higher troop levels.
But Biden also conceded that Congress can do little to prevent Bush from acting as he sees fit.
"It's a sense of the Senate to try to convince the president that there are significant numbers in the United States Senate who think this proposal is a mistake and hopefully force him to reconsider," Biden said on NBC's Meet the Press.
"This is a prescription for another tragedy," added Biden, a potential 2008 presidential candidate who expects to set up an exploratory committee by the end of the month to begin laying the groundwork for a Democratic nomination bid.
"There is now a civil war. You need a political solution," he said.
- REUTERS
