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GOP leaders vow to back Bush on Iraq plan
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House is threatening to veto any effort to change its request for $20 billion to rebuild Iraq to include loans as well as grants, but Republican leaders in Congress face growing calls to make half the amount a loan. The House of Representatives already has approved the $20 billion request, which was part of President Bush's $87 billion supplemental spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the House on Tuesday passed a nonbinding resolution urging its leaders to convert $10 billion to a loan, as the Senate voted to do last week. Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tennessee, said lending Iraq $10 billion in place of an outright grant is "an issue that resonates with a lot of Americans" at a time when states are raising college tuition and cutting services. "We know they have $2 trillion worth of oil revenue in reserve -- or I should say, over time, can produce that," Ford told Fox News. "It seems only fair to most Americans they pay us back at some level, and I happen to agree." But a top GOP lawmaker said Wednesday that Republicans would line up behind the White House on a final vote. "Our members have stood firm with the president," said Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, the House majority whip. "We intend to continue to do that." Dozens of Republicans joined Democrats to back Tuesday's resolution. "We are in debt $400 billion a year now," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California. "That's our level of deficit spending. We have to borrow that $10 billion to give it to the Iraqi people. Why don't we let them repay it after 20 years?" In a letter to lawmakers Tuesday, White House aides warned the loan proposal "raises questions about our commitment to building a democratic and self-governing Iraq and impairs our ability to encourage other nations to provide badly needed assistance." At a two-day conference starting Thursday in Madrid, Spain, the United States will seek contributions from other countries to help rebuild Iraq, and the letter warned that Bush might veto any bill that extended the aid as a loan. Blunt called measure "appealingly crafted" but "meaningless" since Republicans would side with the White House in a conference committee to reconcile the House and Senate bills. He compared the loan proposal to the victorious allies of World War I saddling Germany with debt at the war's end. Historians often cite the move as contributing to that country's economic collapse and the rise of Hitler. "This conference will come out with grants, not loans, and we'll follow up with the president's desire to keep Iraq moving toward freedom," Blunt said.
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