White House, Democrats differ on Senator Clinton's war move

WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) The White House and congressional Democrats were at odds again today over a new effort backed by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to repeal the congressional authority President George W Bush used to launch the Iraq war.

Clinton's move on Thursday came as she attempts to blunt a strong challenge from Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama for their party's presidential nomination in a campaign in which the issue of the Iraq war looms large.

The challenge to the 2002 war authorization, which Bush used as justification to start the war the following year, emerged as the White House and congressional leaders seek to find common ground and break a deadlock over Iraq war funding.

Clinton, of New York, joined West Virginia Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, to propose October 11, 2007, the five-year anniversary of the original resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, as the expiration date for that resolution.

The proposal amounted to a new attempt to force Bush to accept a US troop withdrawal timetable, days after he vetoed a 124 billion dollars Iraq war funding bill because it would require him to start pulling out troops this year.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto called Clinton's action ''reckless'' and ''a political stunt.'' ''It's not reflective of conditions on the ground, it's not reflective of the contributions of our troops. You can't for example ask al Qaeda in Iraq, are they going to end their operations on the same date? I guess that would be nice, but that's not the way it works,'' Fratto said.

Clinton's move had the air of political positioning. She has been pounded by the Democratic left for having voted for the war authorization in 2002 and has refused liberal entreaties to apologize for it, saying she would not have voted for it if she knew then what she knows now.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Clinton's proposal deserved consideration.

''I think it would be good if we could debate that issue. And it's something that I will try to set up so that we can have a debate and a vote on it,'' Reid told Reuters.

Reid and other Democratic leaders are engaged in closed-door negotiations with White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and other senior Bush aides on how to agree on the funding bill given Bush's refusal to accept a pullout timetable and Democrats' desire to see an end to the war.

Asked if he would back a proposal floating around the House of Representatives to fund the war for just three months as a compromise to the war funding dispute, Reid said, ''I personally don't support that.'' Earlier, on the Senate floor, Reid said his Thursday meeting with Bolten and Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on the funding bill had been ''constructive'' and ''comfortable'' and that another meeting was scheduled for early next week.

''Nothing is off the table,'' he told the chamber.

He said many Republicans in the Senate also wanted a change in strategy in Iraq, and wanted to be part of the solution on the war.

''We will work to reach agreement on a bill that fully funds the troops, while providing a reasonable new course that makes America more secure and leads to an early end to America's involvement in the Iraq civil war,'' he said.

Reuters SM DB2331