WASHINGTON - Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the former presidential peace candidate whose opposition to the Iraq war is now practically mainstream, wants to cut off future funding for the war.

It's the only way to assure a pullout soon, he says.

The Cleveland Democrat, appearing Wednesday on the Democracy Now independent broadcast network and Thursday on Fox News, says he will push that message in Congress and try to get a majority of his colleagues to agree. He would leave current funding in place but refuse the next Bush administration request for more money for the war, which could come by spring.

Money already in the pipeline would cover the pullout, he told The Plain Dealer.

Meantime, the United States could begin discussions with the United Nations and Arab nations including Syria and Iran about an international "peace force" to take over.

American dissatisfaction with the war is widespread.

Kucinich's calls for a pullout this rapidly, however, may be in the minority of even his own party.

Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, said Wednesday in a press breakfast, "Democrats are united in our feeling that we must redeploy. Does that mean pull out immediately? Of course it doesn't."

Rather, Reid said, "we have to have more counterinsurgency, we must do better force protection, and of course we've got to have better trainers. . . . We also have to do something to revitalize reconstruction."

To Kucinich, that would only mean more lost American and Iraqi lives.

"It's inevitable that we're going to get out of Iraq," he said. "This isn't a question of if, but of when."

Copyright © 2006 Cleveland Plain Dealer

###