Washington The US Defense Department alerted more than 35,000 Army soldiers they could be sent to Iraq this fall. In Congress, Democrats in the House of Representatives defiantly pushed a plan to limit war funding to two-month installments.
The deployment orders signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates would allow commanders to maintain the buildup of troops through the end of the year if needed. President George W. Bush already ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to quell a spike in violence, particularly in and around Baghdad.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the orders do not mean the military has decided to maintain the increased force levels through December. The Pentagon ''has been very clear that a decision about the duration of the surge will depend on conditions on the ground,'' Whitman said.
The announcement comes as Bush is under increasing pressure to pull troops out of Iraq. Bush last week vetoed $124.2 billion (91.6 billion) legislation that would have funded the war while requiring troops to start coming home in a few months. According to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll released on Tuesday, just over half of Americans did not approve of the veto.
House Democratic leaders briefed party members on Tuesday on new legislation that would finance the Iraq war through July, then give Congress the option of stopping the money after that if conditions had not improved. Bush requested more than $90 billion (66.4 billion) to fund the war through September.
The proposal is aimed at appeasing Democratic lawmakers who want to end the war immediately and are urging leaders not to back down after Bush's veto last week. But lacking a firm endorsement by the Senate, which also has a Democratic majority, the challenge by House Democrats seemed more for political show than a preview of another veto showdown with Bush.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters before meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday that ''nothing's been ruled out and nothing's been ruled in'' as he would continue to try to work with the White House.
House Democratic leaders struck a more defiant tone.
''I didn't commit to any compromise'' with the White House, said Pelosi.
Asked whether Democrats still were talking with the White House, Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel said, ''They know what we're doing obviously. I don't think their subscriptions to the newspapers ended at any time recently.''
Democratic leadership aides said Reid and Pelosi acknowledged in their meeting Tuesday that the House plan would be considerably more difficult to pass in the Senate, where 60 votes are often required, and the two chambers may have to pursue different tracks.
Earlier in the day, Bush met with more than a dozen Democrats, mostly with relatively conservative voting records.
''They (the White House) seemed to be concerned about their relationship with a number of us, and I think they should be,'' said one of the Democrats who attended, Rep. Bud Cramer. ''It's perplexing why we couldn't have had a couple of these meetings earlier.''
Snow and other administration officials have tried to tamp down expectations of the September review, although several senior Republicans say it will prove critical to whether the party continues to support the war.
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