Antiwar forces take aim at GOP lawmakers

'Iraq summer' activists claim credit for certain defections on Bush's Iraq policy. Republicans dispute that.
By Gail Russell Chaddock
The Christian Science Monitor

Washington

With the war in Iraq roiling Congress, antiwar groups are targeting dozens of lawmakers – many facing tough reelection races in 2008 – in a bid to peel off enough Republicans to force President Bush to end the war there.

Organizers claim that breaks in GOP ranks over war strategy in recent weeks are a result of more heat from home – and that they helped to generate it. As debate resumes this week, they predict, more defections will occur.

"We're running a political campaign with a long horizon," says Tom Matzzie of MoveOn.org Political Action, who is managing the "Iraq Summer" campaign for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (AAEI). "We'll gain more ... momentum over the next few weeks, and more Republicans will break."

Lawmakers say they're making up their own minds, independent of antiwar-group pressure. It may be coincidence that Sen. Pete Domenici (R) announced his opposition to Mr. Bush's war strategy two days after AAEI launched its campaign in his home state of New Mexico – despite the group's taking credit for the switch.

Seven Senate Republicans – six up for reelection in 2008 – voted last week against the Bush administration's position on a proposal to mandate longer time at home for US forces. If passed, the measure would have limited Bush's ability to redeploy units to a war zone.

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