Rules Committee to vote on measure urging removal of troops from Pakistan

The House Rules Committee will vote Monday evening on a resolution urging the removal of U.S. armed forces from Pakistan after newspapers published leaked documents suggesting that Pakistani intelligence has cooperated with Islamic extremist groups.

The privileged resolution, introduced by anti-war Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) was drafted before the revelation of the documents. Kucinich introduced the measure in response to a Wall Street Journal report last week, which said that the United States is conducting special military operations in Pakistan.

The United States has publicly worked to enlist Pakistan in its efforts to root out Islamic extremist groups such as al Qaeda and the Taliban from neighboring Afghanistan.

The House Rules Committee said Monday it will take up the measure at 6:30 p.m. Kucinich and his co-sponsor, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), argue the Obama administration has failed to notify Congress about armed forces in Pakistan, thereby violating the War Powers Act.

“The U.S. military has significantly increased its activity in Pakistan — both in troop presence and Predator attacks — at a time when there are, according to the CIA, very few al Qaeda members in that country,” Paul said in a statement last week. “This increasing U.S. military activity in Pakistan has little to do with protecting the United States and in fact is creating more enemies than it is defeating.”

If a vote is taken by the full House, Kucinich and Paul will likely receive time on the floor to speak on the issue. The leak of 92,000 secret documents by the organization Wikileaks on Sunday will probably further fuel the debate.

Since the resolution is privileged in nature — because it deals with war powers — it was scheduled to come up for a floor vote this week regardless of the leak issue. But the Rules Committee will make determinations on Monday about how the sensitive measure is brought to the floor.

The documents detailed in the leak show that the government believed Pakistani intelligence was covertly aiding the Afghan insurgency against the United States while Pakistan was taking American aid to help fight against it.

The Obama administration has strongly condemned the leak as a danger to national security, but war critics have used the information to argue the conflict has is increasingly becoming unwinnable.

Kucinich introduced a similar resolution earlier this year to force the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan immediately. It was easily defeated.

Jordan Fabian @'The Hill'