Anti-war member denied GOP leadership position on House panel

House Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., has disciplined one of his party's most vocal anti-war members by denying him a minority leadership position on the powerful defense committee.

Hunter, a loyal supporter of President Bush and an outspoken hawk on the Iraq war, recently told Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., that he would be passed over for the Readiness Subcommittee ranking member slot because of his stance on the war, Jones said in an interview Thursday.

Jones, in his seventh term, rose quickly in seniority on the 61-member panel after two more-senior GOP members suffered election defeats and former Readiness Subcommittee Chairman Joel Hefley, R-Colo., retired.

Now the eighth-ranking Republican on the committee, Jones was in line to be ranking member on one of the seven Armed Services subcommittees. Instead, Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va., will serve as ranking member on the Readiness panel. Davis, in her fourth term, ranks 11th in seniority among 28 Republicans.

"We have to pay a price, from time to time," Jones said of Hunter's decision. He added that he is "disappointed, but not angry" at Hunter.

Jones has frequently butted heads with Hunter, GOP leaders and the Bush administration, often siding with a handful of Republicans and most Democrats on the Iraq war.

He and seven other Republican members sent a letter to the White House Wednesday opposing President Bush's strategy to add 21,500 more troops into Baghdad and Anbar province.

But his opposition to the war pre-dates that of many other Republicans, who have become increasingly weary of the conflict since the midterm elections, widely deemed a referendum on the public's frustration.

In 2005, Jones teamed up with Democratic Reps. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii to sponsor the first resolution calling on the administration to set a date for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by October 2006.

"Clearly we are giving Iraqis every reasonable chance for a democracy, but at some time in the near future, the ultimate fate of Iraq will, and should, rest in the hands of the Iraqis," Jones said at the time, advancing an argument now being made by virtually all mainstream Democrats in Congress.

Last year, Jones was one of five GOP lawmakers to vote "present" for a GOP resolution calling for victory in the war on terror and reaffirming the U.S. commitment to prevailing in Iraq.

Jones said he will not be discouraged from opposing the war.

Meanwhile, Hunter will continue to work with Jones as a rank-and-file member of the committee.

Hunter's spokesman did not address Jones' failure to land a ranking member slot, but said in an e-mail that Jones "is a valuable Republican member" of the committee."

The spokesman added that Jones was assigned Thursday to the new Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, his top choice for subcommittee assignment. Jones will also serve under Davis on the Readiness panel.

Hunter's decision drew an outraged response from House Armed Services Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor, D-Miss., a strong advocate of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

"I think that's a rotten thing to do," Taylor said. "I [would] welcome him in the Democratic Caucus," Taylor added.

Though he ran -- and lost -- his first congressional campaign as a Democrat, Jones is not expected to switch parties, congressional aides said.