In a vote charged with election-year politics, the US House of Representatives on Friday passed a symbolic resolution that wrapped the Iraq conflict into the war on terrorism and rejected a deadline for US troop withdrawal.
The House voted 256-153 for the resolution that sparked two days of emotional debate as Republicans sought to depict Democrats as weak on terrorism while Democrats decried President George W. Bush's policies that they said led to chaos in Iraq and detracted from the fight against al Qaeda.
"Will we fight or will we retreat? That's the question that's posed to us," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. "Defeating repressive radical terrorists and their allies is our defining task of the 21st century."
But in impassioned debate, Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, erupted in anger at Republicans who talked about continuing the fight in Iraq.
Murtha, a Vietnam veteran and defence hawk who rocked the Congress last year when he turned against the war, said it was "easy to stay in an air-conditioned office and say I'm going to stay the course." He added, "That's why I get so upset when they stand here sanctimoniously and say we're fighting this thing. It's the troops that are doing the fighting."
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