Dems frustrated as House approves $70 billion for wars

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House of Representatives approved another $70 billion in war spending on Wednesday, capping a year of frustration for Democrats who took control of Congress on pledges to end the war in Iraq.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says President Bush is driving allies "over the cliff."

The money was part of a $555 billion measure that funds government agencies for the 2008 budget year. It passed on a 272-142 vote, more than a month after Democratic leaders had refused to approve more money for Iraq without requiring President Bush to begin withdrawing U.S. combat troops from the nearly five-year-old conflict.

Democrats credit their opposition to the widely unpopular war for the 2006 election victories that brought them to power in both houses of Congress.

But their efforts to end the war have foundered all year in the Senate, where Bush's Republican allies have successfully used filibusters to kill them.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat from Nevada, said Democrats would continue trying to bring an end to the conflict, and he warned that Bush was driving his GOP allies "over the cliff" by continuing the war.

"I hope this last year of his eight-year reign will be one where he will understand -- and more importantly, the Republican senators will understand -- that they've got to break away from this," Reid said.

Rep. David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said Democrats "have tried every way known to man to bring this war to a conclusion."
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"I think it is clear that if the nation wants a change in direction with respect to this war, it has only two options," said Obey, D-Wisconsin. "One is to elect more progressive voices in the United States Senate, and second is to elect a president who has a different set of priorities domestically and a different vision for America's involvement in the Middle East -- and especially in Iraq."

Most Republicans repeatedly refused to break with the president. They pointed to reports of declining U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties since August as a sign that Bush's commitment of nearly 30,000 additional troops to Baghdad and its surrounding province was bearing fruit.