House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has announced that the Democrats will send President Bush $50 billion (about a quarter of the $196 billion requested by Bush) for combat operations in Iraq “on the condition that he begin withdrawing troops from Iraq.” The House proposal would set a goal of “ending combat entirely by December 2008″ and would require that troops spend as much time at home as they do in combat, as well as effectively ban harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding.”

In a private caucus meeting Pelosi told Democrats that the bill “was their best shot at challenging Bush on the war. And if Bush rejected it, she said, she did not intend on sending him another war spending bill for the rest of the year.” Responding to the proposed legislation, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has called Pelosi’s plan “backward and irresponsible.”

As long as we’re continuing to have success, as long as our soldiers are continuing to move out of harm’s way and have Iraqis more out front, I think that the Congress of the United States will not put these kind of handcuffs on our generals or on our troops.

The only thing that’s “backward and irresponsible” is Boehner’s rhetoric. While violence may have slightly decreased, 2007 has become the deadliest year for American forces in Iraq, the Iraqi government has made no progress towards national political reconciliation, Iraq’s reconstruction efforts have stalled, and “the number of Iraqis killed in insurgent and sectarian attacks rose in October.

Most Americans don’t agree with Boehner’s rose-colored assessment of “continuing” success in Iraq. While 63 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. effort to bring stability to Iraq is going “somewhat badly” or “very badly”, 60 percent of Americans, an all time high, now favor withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.

Views on progress are unchanged from early September, and they haven’t been positive since December 2005, shortly after the Iraqi elections. […]

All told, 63 percent say the war was not worth fighting, almost exactly its average this year, and a majority, steadily since December 2004. Intensity against the war continues to run high, with 51 percent saying they feel “strongly” that it was not worth fighting, more than double its strong supporters.

In fact, “most Americans do not believe Congress has gone far enough in opposing the war” and 66 percent want Congress to “reduce somewhat” or “reduce sharply” President Bush’s $196 billion request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ironically, while the Democrats are responding to the wishes of the American people, the self-proclaimed propagators of democracy in Iraq are ignoring the public’s overwhelming desire for a policy change.

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