House Democrats press ahead with war funding bill

Democratic leaders still planned to bring the bill to a vote on Thursday, as Republicans acknowledged that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had devised a strategy to try to jam the bill past Republicans and President Bush in a form that he might have to sign.

Pelosi's strategy relies on keeping the measure free of many domestic add-ons that have provoked a Bush veto threat -except for a politically popular extension of unemployment benefits and an even more popular increase in education benefits for troops returning from Iraq.

Republicans acknowledged privately that Pelosi's plan to send Bush a bill clean of too many Democratic add-ons -and ultimately shorn of language setting a nonbinding timeline to remove combat troops from Iraq -would be difficult for Bush to stop.

"That's going to be really hard for the White House to push back on," said a former White House aide.

First, however, Pelosi must overcome a rebellion by moderate to conservative Democrats, who are upset that the war funding bill is carrying new benefit programs -especially the boost in GI education benefits -without paying for them with offsetting cuts to other programs.

The revolt among these "Blue Dog" Democrats kept House leaders from officially releasing the measure Wednesday in advance of Thursday's planned vote.

Meanwhile, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., and fellow Democrats on the panel revealed a far more ambitious list of domestic add-ons to the war funding measure.

The additional money in the Senate includes $10.4 billion for continuing recovery efforts from Hurricane Katrina, almost double Bush's request. There's also $490 million in crime-fighting grants to state and local governments, $451 million to repair roads and bridges damaged by natural disasters, $450 million to combat western wildfires and $400 million for rural counties suffering from cutbacks in timber-related revenues.

Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., touted an additional $1.3 billion in international food aid, while Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, obtained $400 million more for National Institutes of Health research programs.