The rhetoric over a military spending bill intensified in Washington on Wednesday as U.S. armed forces prepared to shoulder an even heavier load on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned Democrats that lack of action on the war supplemental (HR 1591) would have dire consequences for the military — a message delivered just hours before the Pentagon announced that tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan will be extended by three months so that troop levels for the president’s “surge” can be sustained.

Democrats, who harshly criticized the tour extension policy, have said they plan to send President Bush an Iraq supplemental spending bill by the end of the month. But they must first scale a series of philosophical, political and practical obstacles to get the measure to the White House.

Democratic leaders must bridge the gap between liberals who support the deadline in the House spending measure for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq in 2008 and moderates who prefer the approach in the Senate’s version of the bill, which would set a goal for withdrawal.

Conference talks will open against the backdrop of heated political attacks that reflect the growing stakes for the administration and Congress over Iraq policy. Bush has promised to veto the final war spending bill if it contains spending he did not request and language placing restrictions on his conduct of the war.

Both the $124.3 billion House version and the $123.2 billion Senate version include about $20 billion more than Bush requested, mostly for the military, veterans’ health programs, Gulf Coast hurricane recovery and disaster-struck farmers.

Republicans have encouraged Democrats to deliver the measure quickly so it can be vetoed and a new one can be sent to the president in its place.

“It is a simple fact of life that if the fiscal year 2007 supplemental legislation is not enacted soon, the Army faces a real and serious funding problem that will require increasingly disruptive and costly measures to be initiated — measures that will, inevitably, negatively impact readiness and Army personnel and their families,” Gates wrote to Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.

The Army will stop upgrading facilities, reduce equipment maintenance and cut back on training, Gates said. If funds are not provided by mid-May, he said, the steps will become more severe. Yet Democrats have cited a Congressional Research Service report suggesting that the military can operate into July without undue burden.

The tour extensions gave pause to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. “I think this will have a chilling effect on recruiting, retention and readiness,” said House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo.

Republican stalwart John W. Warner of Virginia, the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the announcement poses perils for the all-volunteer military itself. In a statement, Warner said he feels “strongly that we must carefully monitor the possible risks to that system that these extensions may generate.”

Democrats said they will go to the White House on April 18 to meet with Bush after the two sides initially rejected each others’ offers to discuss the legislation.

But before Democrats can negotiate with Bush, they must resolve internal differences. The primary political question for Democrats is whether House leaders can deliver liberal votes for a plan that also passes the muster of conservative Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who holds the swing vote on the conference committee that will write the final version of the legislation.

Nelson opposes the House’s specific deadline for withdrawal of most U.S. combat forces from Iraq.

Yet there are signs that liberals who voted for the House bill last month would be uncomfortable with the Senate’s language. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has said he could not support that approach.

On the other hand, House moderates who voted against the supplemental last month could re-examine a conference report with the less firm Senate language.

“My boss’s main objection to the House version was the date certain and the timetable,” said Alyson Heyrend, spokeswoman for Jim Matheson, D-Utah. “He’s familiarizing himself with the language in the Senate bill, but he’s not taken a position on it.”

Another issue for Democrats remains the condition of Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who was appointed to the conference committee because of his seat on the Senate Appropriations panel. Johnson, who had a brain hemorrhage late last year, is recuperating at an undisclosed location and has not cast a vote in the Senate this year.

Congressional rules require that a majority of conferees from each chamber physically sign the report. And that’s where practical complications could come into play.

Johnson spokeswoman Julianne Fisher would not say how her boss physically would sign a conference report.

“We’re working through the logistics,” she said. “His signature will have to be on the document.”

Yet there is at least one precedent for a proxy signature on a conference report. On May 29, 1944, the report on a measure amending the Tariff Act of 1930 was submitted to the Senate with a notation that conferee Arthur H. Vandenberg, R-Tenn., had affixed his version of Ohio Republican Robert A. Taft’s signature. Vandenberg initialed the change, according to the Congressional Record.

Patrick Yoest, David Clarke and Michael R. Crittenden contributed to this story.

First posted April 11, 2007 9:36 p.m.