House OKs resolution rejecting timetable for pullout of troops

In Baghdad, a shoe bomber killed 13 at a mosque during Friday prayers.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The U.S. House handily rejected Friday a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq, culminating a fiercely partisan debate between Republicans and Democrats feeling the public's apprehension about war and the onrushing midterm campaign season.
In a 256-153 vote that mirrored the position taken by the Senate earlier, the GOP-led House approved a nonbinding resolution that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest.
"Retreat is not an option in Iraq," declared House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "Achieving victory is our only option. ... We have no choice but to confront these terrorists, win the war on terror and spread freedom and democracy around the world."
"Stay the course, I don't think so Mr. President. It's time to face the facts," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California answered, as she called for a new direction in the conflict. "The war in Iraq has been a mistake. I say, a grotesque mistake."
Going on record
Four months before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, House Republicans sought to force Republicans and Democrats alike to take a position on the conflict that began with the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003.
Democrats denounced the debate and vote as a politically motivated charade, and most, including Pelosi, voted against the measure. They said that supporting it would have the effect of affirming Bush's "failed policy" in Iraq.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, a suspected shoe bomber targeting a Shiite imam who criticized Abu Musab al-Zarqawi blew himself up inside one of Baghdad's most prominent mosques during Friday prayers, killing 13 people and shattering a fragile calm imposed by a security crackdown in the capital.
Elsewhere, a soldier in the U.S.-led coalition was killed and two others were missing after an attack on a checkpoint, the U.S. military said. The attack took place about 8 p.m. Friday near the town of Yusufiyah, some 12 miles southwest of Baghdad.
About the bombing
The bombing of the Buratha mosque, one of several attacks nationwide, was carried out despite a four-hour driving ban intended to prevent suicide car bombs during Friday prayers, the main religious service of the week.
Buratha's imam, a leading Shiite politician, blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for the attack. He said the terror group was trying to reassert itself after the death of its leader in a U.S. airstrike last week.
"Al-Qaida is trying to restore some respect after the killing of the terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by targeting one of the leading Shiite clerics, but they will fail," said the imam, Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer.
The imam, who was not injured, said the bombing came after guards found two pairs of explosive-laden shoes outside the mosque. The guards entered the mosque and began searching everyone who had carried their shoes inside, he said.
When they approached the attacker, he detonated what would have been a third pair of explosive-laden shoes, he said.
"The guards discovered two pairs of shoes full of explosives. That got them to start searching all the worshippers. When one of them tried to search the suicide bomber, he blew himself up," al-Sagheer said.
On a related note, a key insurgency leader in Iraq said the U.S. killing of al-Zarqawi was a "great loss," but one that will strengthen the militants' determination, according to an audio tape broadcast Friday in Cairo, Egypt.
The Al-Jazeera network said the voice on the tape was that of Abu Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, the head of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, which groups five Iraqi insurgent organizations including al-Qaida inIraq.
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