WASHINGTON — President Bush and Congress are headed toward another showdown on war spending, this time sparring over nearly $190 billion the Pentagon says is needed to keep combat in Iraq afloat for another year. Sen. Robert Byrd, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, vowed Wednesday not to ‘rubber stamp” the request and said it was time to put Bush’s policies in check. ‘We cannot create a democracy at the point of a gun,” said Byrd, D-W.Va., whose speech during a Senate hearing on the spending request was interrupted several times by cheers of anti-war protesters. ‘Sending more guns does not change that reality,” Byrd said. The tough rhetoric was reminiscent of last spring, when Congress passed and Bush vetoed a bill funding the war through September but ordering troop withdrawals to begin by Oct. 1. Democrats still lack the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto. If approved, Congress would have appropriated more than $760 billion for the two wars, having already approved of $450 billion for Iraq and $127 billion for Afghanistan. Testifying before Byrd’s panel, Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that America’s “difficult choices” on the war “will continue to be […]