New showdown over Iraq war spending looms

WASHINGTON -- President Bush and Congress are headed toward another showdown on war spending, this time sparring over nearly $190 billion the Pentagon says is needed to keep combat in Iraq afloat for another year.

Sen. Robert Byrd, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, vowed Wednesday not to "rubber stamp" the request and said it was time to put Bush's policies in check.

"We cannot create a democracy at the point of a gun," said Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat whose speech during a Senate hearing on the spending request were interrupted several times by cheers of anti-war protesters.

"Sending more guns does not change that reality," Byrd said.

The tough rhetoric was reminiscent of last spring, when Congress passed and Bush vetoed a bill funding the war through September but ordering troop withdrawals to begin by Oct. 1. Democrats still lack the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.

If approved, Congress would have appropriated more than $760 billion for the two wars, having already approved of $450 billion for Iraq and $127 billion for Afghanistan.

Testifying before Byrd's panel, Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that America's "difficult choices" on the war "will continue to be a source of friction within the Congress, between the Congress and the president and in the wider public debate."

But Gates said he hoped Congress would approve money that is needed by the troops.

"Under some of the most trying conditions, they have done far more than what was asked of them, and far more than what was expected," he said.

Hitting back at Iran

The Bush administration moved Wednesday to cement international support for new U.N. sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programs and rebuked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for declaring the issue "closed."

A day after a defiant Ahmadinejad told the U.N. General Assembly his country would defy further U.N. Security Council efforts to impose additional penalties, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides sought to marshal consensus on the move.

"I am sorry to tell President Ahmadinejad that the case is not closed," said Nicholas Burns, the State Department's No. 3 diplomat. He was to meet with senior diplomats from the five permanent Security Council members and Germany to craft elements of a new sanctions resolution.

"We're going to keep going," Burns told reporters. "If Mr. Ahmadinejad thinks somehow that he has been given a pass, he is mistaken about that."

Burns' talks over dinner with diplomats from Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany will set the stage for a second meeting today and then one between Rice and the group's other foreign ministers on Friday when the resolution is expected to be further defined.

However, he said it is unlikely that the text of a new resolution will be agreed to this week.

Bush praises Karzai

President Bush said that Afghanistan is becoming a safer, more stable country, thanks to the efforts of President Hamid Karzai.

"Mr. President, you've got strong friends here," Bush told Karzai after they met for about an hour at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York on Wednesday. "I expect progress and you expect progress, and I appreciate the report you have given me today."

The two leaders made no direct mention of Afghanistan's soaring drug trade, the unsuccessful search for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden or the resurgence of the Taliban.

Bush sought to remind the American public why U.S. forces are still in Afghanistan, site of a war often overshadowed by the one in Iraq.

"It's in our security interests that this democracy flourish, because if freedom takes place in Afghanistan, it will set an example of what's possible in other parts of the broader Middle East," Bush said.

He and Karzai discussed drug-fighting operations, the battle against al-Qaida and the Taliban and the development of energy using Afghanistan's natural resources.

Karzai returned the focus to the liberation of his people, which he said is overlooked these days.

"I don't know if you feel it in the United States, but we feel it so immensely in Afghanistan," Karzai said.

"Afghanistan has indeed made progress," Karzai insisted, citing improvements in basic services such as roads and education.

Yet persistent security troubles have undermined Afghanistan's stability.

Afghan opium poppy cultivation has hit a record high this year, fueled by Taliban militants and corrupt officials in Karzai's government, a U.N. report found last month. The country produces nearly all the world's opium, and Taliban insurgents are profiting.

Also, Afghanistan remains in a fight for basic security, a constant threat to its growth as a new democracy. Karzai is pledging to work hard on peace talks with the Taliban to draw the insurgents and their supporters "back to the fold," as he put it this week.

The United States has more than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan. Aides say it is natural for Bush to meet Karzai to review progress, but no single issue prompted their sit-down.

Bush, in New York for the annual gathering of the U.N. General Assembly, made only brief mention of the war in Afghanistan during his speech to world leaders Tuesday. He said the people of Afghanistan -- and Iraq and Lebanon -- were in a deadly fight for survival.

Bush also pivoted to his domestic agenda before wrapping up three days in New York.

He touted new national test scores as evidence that the No Child Left Behind Act, his signature education law, is working and deserving of renewal by Congress.

"My call to the Congress is, don't water down this good law," Bush said Wednesday. "Don't go backward when it comes to educational excellence."

The new national test results, released Tuesday, show elementary and middle schoolers posted solid gains in math. The students made more modest improvements in reading, however.

Bush met with Joel Klein, chancellor of New York City's school system, which has won the nation's top prize for urban districts. The district garnered the honor chiefly for reducing achievements gaps among poor and minority kids, a key educational goal for Bush.

The president intends to miss no chance to talk up the No Child Left Behind law, which is up for renewal in Congress. Many lawmakers say it is too narrow and punitive.

Bush, accompanied Klein and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, surrounded himself with about two dozen public school children. Several of them seemed stunned by the attention.

Before leaving town, Bush spoke at a private fundraiser for the Republican National Committee.