Bush feels heat from Republican party over Iraq policy
By Deborah McGregor in Washington
Published: July 12 2004 19:14 | Last Updated: July 13 2004 0:23
President George W. Bush's choice of Tennessee on Monday as the backdrop for
a spirited defence of his Iraq policy underscored the political pressures he
is facing from within his Republican party on the issue.
Mr Bush chose to make his remarks in Oak Ridge after touring a display of nuclear weapons parts and equipment, including assembled gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment from Libya. The event was meant to highlight a Bush administration success in the "war on terror" by focusing on the agreement with Muammer Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, to end his country's nuclear weapons programme.
Oak Ridge falls within the third congressional district represented by Zach Wamp, a Republican who supported Mr Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq. But just down the road - in the second congressional district of Tennessee - another story has been unfolding. There, John Duncan, a popular long-serving Republican congressman who is expected to win re-election easily in November, has shown no sign of backing down from his strong opposition to the war.
As one of only six House Republicans to vote against authorising Mr Bush to go to war in Iraq, Mr Duncan has struck an independent path. Although he was part of Mr Bush's entourage on Monday and has tried to keep the difference of opinion with Mr Bush from becoming personal, Mr Duncan has become an emblem of the problem the president confronts within his own party in dealing with Iraq.
"I represent a district that has voted Republican for Congress and president since the founding of the Republican party," said Mr Duncan in a comprehensive statement last September. "Yet now there are many life-long Republicans who are wondering why in the world we are borrowing billions to rebuild Iraq when there are so many people unemployed and so many needs here at home.
"Many, possibly even most, Republicans in the House have expressed misgivings and concerns about our policy in Iraq but have reluctantly gone along with the White House."
Mr Duncan has a voting record that establishes him solidly within the ranks of loyal party members. He voted for Mr Bush's tax cuts. He is strongly anti-abortion.
But like other conservatives, he has broken with Mr Bush on some key issues - most decisively on Iraq. He opposed granting the president fast-track trade negotiating authority and was one of only 10 Republicans to vote against establishing the Department of Homeland Security, believing it to be an unnecessary expansion of the federal government.
In October 2002 he was the only congressman from Tennessee to vote against granting Mr Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq. Mr Duncan said it was the most difficult vote in his 14 years in Congress. But he said there was not enough proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
"Conservatives have never believed that the United States should be the policeman of the world," Mr Duncan said.
Tennessee is regarded as a conservative, patriotic state - carried by Mr Bush in 2000 in spite of being home to Democrat Al Gore. This year, Democrats have all but written it off. But the backlash among conservative patriots - like Mr Duncan and his many constituents - lends an unpredictable quality to the campaign.
"There is nothing conservative about the US policy in Iraq," Mr Duncan
has said often in recent speeches. "Conservatives have never believed in
massive foreign aid. Conservatives have been strong supporters of national defence,
not international defence."