New Hampshire's Representatives Want a Chance to Vote on the Iraq War

NARR: The last time lawmakers voted on the war was in May.

Congress attached time tables for troop withdrawal to a special war funding bill.

It made it to the president's desk where he quickly vetoed it.

Then the Democrats gave up their timetable, in exchange for twenty billion dollars of domestic funding.

And the president got his money to continue the policy in Iraq.

Since then the issue has taken a back seat to immigration and energy legislation.

But now Democratic fervor is building and the war is moving back to the center, though the debate has changed.

SHEA4-WE GOT THE POWER
:06 It's not just about appropriations, it's about authorizing or deautherizing. And Congress has the power to do that.

New Hampshire’s First District Democrat Carol Shea-Porter wasn't in Congress for the initial war authorization.

But she and a growing number of lawmakers want to have their say on it now.

SHEA1-KNOWS
:10 Well every body knows that the reasons they gave us for going into the war was not correct – there were no weapons of mass destruction. We have to remember that's the reason we were given to go into the war

On the House side there is a bill that would force Congress to amend the original authorization for the war.

If passed it would give lawmakers six months to rethink the war.

Then they would have to vote to keep the same authorization, write a new authorization, or to leave Iraq altogether.

This week New York Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton sent a letter to colleagues asking for a war re-authorization vote on October eleventh.

New Hampshire Republican Senator John Sununu says the vote is unnecessary.

SUNUNU1-GAMES
:07 We look at supporting and authorizing troop levels every time we do a defense appropriations bill or defense authorization bill

New Hampshire 's other Republican Senator Judd Gregg says the vote wouldn't be good for troops.

GREGG2-DETRAMENTAL
:06 We are putting their lives on the line. I think that type of action would be detrimental to their morale.

Senator Sununu says fixing the current policy is a better step forward.

SUNUNU3-POLICY RIGHT
:17 The key should be to get the policy right now. Not to look back two years, or four years, or five years, or ten years. But to get the policy right, to improve the situation in Iraq so that no American soldier has to spend a day more than is absolutely necessary serving there or anywhere overseas

On the House side another debate is slowly growing. Ohio Democratic Congressman and Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.

He argues Cheney manipulated pre-war intelligence and knowingly deceived lawmakers and the public.

Shea-Porter says she has better things to do than to get involved in the impeachment debate.

SHEA_PORTER2-NO TIME
:05 I personally do not have energy or the time to direct it towards that

Second District Congressman Paul Hodes isn't as dismissive.

As a former prosecutor, Hodes says he will weigh the evidence Kucinich offers against Cheney.

But Hodes still doesn't think impeachment is the right goal.

HODES2-PRODUCTIVE
:17 I am not sure that impeachment is a productive course for the American people or this Congress at this time given what we are facing. Frankly I think it would be more of a diversion from the real work that we have to do for the American people who are expecting results.

Hodes says he thinks reauthorization is a better way to deal with the war.

He says he thinks it would be productive for both parties to debate why America went to Iraq, and the reasons it remains there.

For NHPR News, I'm Matt Laslo in Washington.