How Congress could stop the war - but won't

What if Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi refused to present Congress with a bill to fund the criminal U.S. occupation of Iraq? The possibility of a Bush veto would not be an issue.

Although billions of dollars are still in the pipeline, President George W. Bush and the Pentagon, faced with a new political reality, would be forced to begin making plans for withdrawal.

As speaker of the House, Pelosi has full control over which pieces of legislation make it onto the floor for a vote. The Democratic Party majority in Congress could just sit on any war-spending bill and there would be no funds for the war.

Last November, when millions of people voted for Democratic Party politicians who claimed to be anti-war, this is exactly the kind of legislative action they expected them to take.

It is important to confront the direct fraud that the Democratic leaders, who control a majority in both houses of Congress, are putting forth as they prepare to fund the war. Ever since the election they have given endless excuses about how they lack the votes to do what they promised to do.

The Democrats claim that, because they do not have a two-thirds majority, they are powerless to overrule an expected Bush veto on a war-funding bill that would set a deadline for withdrawal. So they must pass a bill that Bush would approve.

But they could simply refuse to present a bill for ANY war funding.

They clearly have the constitutional authority, the legislative power and the political mandate.

One of Pelosi’s first acts as speaker of the House was to declare that impeachment proceedings against Bush were “off the table.” She would refuse to allow this burning issue to come to the floor of the House. Why not declare instead that war funding is “off the table”?

But it will take a massive, determined, angry and independent movement to force the Democratic majority in Congress to put impeachment on the table and take war funding off.

The Democrats, with endless help from the corporate media, have presented a hand-wringing theatrical fraud about lacking sufficient votes to take any action against the war.

Every major media outlet has spent considerable time and space describing how Democrats need to compromise with Bush and the Republicans. We are told that in order to pass any legislation the Democrats must remove binding dates for withdrawal and give Bush all the money he is demanding to continue the war—all in order to win bipartisan support. All these pundits say the Constitution makes it impossible for Congress to stop the war.

But the opposite is true.

The corporate media are totally interlinked with the oil and military corporations. Five years ago these media provided endless coverage of nonexistent Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.” They continue to give nonstop coverage about the Pentagon’s concern for peace and stability in Iraq. Now they argue that there is no choice except to continue to spend hundreds of billions more on the war.

In May the Democrat-controlled Congress gave Bush even more money for the war than he had asked for. That funding cycle ends on Oct. 1. Congress is set to repeat its collaboration in the war by again voting the funds, while claiming it is helpless to do otherwise.

The Sept. 13 newsletter of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting gives examples of this constant deception practiced by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Associated Press, MSNBC and NBC’s Chris Matthews Show.

Left out of all this coverage are facts that are well-known to all Washington politicians, lobbyists, commentators and journalists on how funding for the war in Iraq could be stopped at any number of points in either the House or Senate.

According to the U.S. Constitution, spending bills have to originate in the House of Representatives. Congress has decisive control over funds for war.

Not only does the speaker of the House, now a Democrat, control what legislation goes to the floor for a vote, but Democrats, as the majority party, currently chair all committees in both houses of Congress.

Spending bills originate in the House Appropriations Committee. Dave Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin who chairs that committee, could simply refuse to move funding for the war out of committee. This is the fate of many hundreds of bills introduced into Congress each year. Most bills “die in committee.”

The Appropriations Committee has a subcommittee on defense chaired by John Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania. Murtha says he wants to bring the troops home. He could do this by refusing to bring forward a bill funding the war.

After a funding bill is approved in the House, it moves to the Senate. Sen. Robert Byrd of Virginia, head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has eloquently opposed the war. He could refuse to move the bill through his committee. Harry Reid, Senate Majority leader, could refuse to bring the bill to the Senate floor. Any of these measures would kill the multi-billion-dollar war-funding bill.

There would be no need for a 60 percent majority to stop a Republican filibuster nor a two-thirds majority to overcome a presidential veto.

To further justify their collaboration with Bush on the war, members of Congress use their supposed concern for U.S. troops as a human shield. They are hiding behind soldiers and the threat that U.S. soldiers could wake up tomorrow with no food, water or even funds to pull out.

This is also a fraud. The Pentagon does not live paycheck to paycheck as workers do. The budget and supply process is decided months and years in advance.

The Pentagon is using funds allocated for the Iraq war to plan and prepare a new war against Iran. Half the U.S. Navy has moved to within striking range of Iran. Pentagon planners have targeted more than 10,000 bombing sites.

So why won’t the congressional Democrats do what they promised to do? Why are they totally complicit in the war?

Every capitalist politician, Republican or Democrat, needs tens of millions of dollars to run for national office. They either have the deep pockets of a multi-million-dollar family fortune behind them or they need large corporate donations. They need hours of favorable coverage in the corporate media.

The entire U.S. ruling class has an enormous stake in the desperate effort to secure continued domination and control of the largest oil reserves on the planet. The super profits that drive the U.S. capitalist economy are drawn from a world empire.

Politicians may wring their hands over the deaths of U.S. soldiers and the spiraling costs that are gutting every desperately needed social program. But political parties are loyal to the capitalist system.

Congress and media know the determination of corporate America is to stay in Iraq for a generation or more.

As the Oct. 1 deadline for funding the war nears, a political challenge is being prepared by the Troops Out Now Coalition. The greatest contribution of the Encampment scheduled to take place directly in front of Congress from Sept. 22 to 29 is to show that independent mass action is needed to really end the war. Learning through bitter experience about the role of both capitalist parties is an essential part of the struggle to end the war.