After a vote Wednesday to block the establishment of permanent bases in Iraq, the House will return to the war debate next week, when it takes up the fiscal 2008 Defense spending bill.

Lawmakers likely will offer several Iraq-related amendments to the bill, including one that would require that a withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq commence within 60 days of enactment.

The amendment, from John P. Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, would not set a deadline for completing the withdrawal, but Murtha estimated that the process would take about one year. It would include the withdrawal of the 180,000 American contractors.

“It means to get the hell out of there,” said Murtha, a former Marine and outspoken war critic.

In anticipation of next week’s debate, Republicans accused Democrats on Wednesday of treating Iraq like a “political football.”

“Our commanders in Iraq are reporting that momentum is swinging in our favor in the new offensive against al Qaeda, but Democrats won’t bother themselves with that information or any of the facts on the ground,” said Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio.

Murtha’s Iraq amendment also would require the president to deliver a political and diplomatic plan for the Middle East that includes five years of military planning in the region beginning in October 2008.

“They’ve got to think ahead, that’s what we’re trying to get them to do,” he said.

On July 12, the House passed, 223-201, a bill (HR 2956) that would require a troop redeployment to begin within 120 days of enactment and be completed by April 1, 2008. Murtha said he came up with the 60-day start for the drawdown because the spending bill is not expected to be passed until at least September.

The amendment’s prospects are unclear, Murtha said. He has said he is determined to enact the underlying bill by Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year.

Murtha also plans to push two other Iraq amendments. He or James P. Moran, D-Va., will introduce a measure that would require the closing of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within 180 days and cut in half the $225 million Bush requested for the facility in fiscal 2008.

Murtha predicted that the House will adopt that amendment.

Another amendment would require that troops be fully trained and equipped prior to deployment.

Currently, only 60 percent to 65 percent of troops visit the National Training Center, a California facility designed to simulate conditions in Iraq, prior to deployment. Murtha acknowledged that the Defense Department would likely be unable to comply with his readiness amendment but pledged to push it anyway.

“The definition of the amendment itself would keep them from deploying troops,” he said.

The House also is likely to vote next week on a separate bill (HR 3159) from Ellen O. Tauscher, D-Calif., that would mandate troop rest times equal to their deployment times, according to aides.

The bill is similar to a contentious amendment that Jim Webb, D-Va., offered to the defense authorization bill (HR 1585) during Senate consideration. The amendment drew a veto threat, although it won the support of seven Senate Republicans. Still, the measure failed, 56-41, to get the 60 votes needed to cut off debate and move to a vote on it.

Under the Tauscher bill, reserves would get a three-year rest between deployments, though the president could waive the requirements in case of a threat to national security.

C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., ranking House subcommittee Republican, said he was not aware of any Republican amendments to the Defense spending bill, but an aide said GOP members could offer an amendment intended to force Democrats to read the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which cites some progress in the war, as well as other Iraq reports.

“Most of them avoid that information like the plague, so we think U.S. national security will improve if it’s passed,” the aide said.

In Wednesday’s vote, the latest piece of the Democrats’ “strategy for a new direction in Iraq,” the House passed the bill, 399-24, to ban permanent bases. The bill had the support of 172 Republicans, many of whom need to show voters during the August recess that they are taking concerns about the war seriously .

The bill says “it is the policy of the United States not to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of U.S. armed forces in Iraq.” It also would prohibit U.S. economic control of Iraqi oil fields.

Democrats said the impression that America plans a permanent military presence in Iraq was fueling the insurgency and sparking resentment among Iraqi citizens.

“Whatever your favorite reason for invading Iraq, the one reason that was never offered was that we are invading Iraq to occupy their land, establish permanent bases and control their oil,” said Gary L. Ackerman, D-N.Y.

Republicans played down the political significance of the bill’s passage with substantial GOP support, pointing out that the House has passed similar language six times and that it is already law as part of the fiscal 2007 defense authorization act (PL 109-364).

“The majority’s attempts to score political points on a range of issues, including particularly Iraq policy, has already paralyzed precious months of military planning and congressional business,” said Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The House plans to take up the White House’s $141 billion request for supplemental war funding, outlined in the president’s budget in February, after the Sept. 15 arrival of a report on Iraq from top U.S. commander Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

Based on the report, the committee may decide to provide only partial 2008 war funding, Murtha said. Young said he expected several GOP amendments to the bill.