By Richard Cowan WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee said he opposes efforts to limit President George W. Bush's U.S. troop buildup in Iraq, but acknowledged the president's supporters face an uphill fight in maintaining Congress' support for full funding. "It's going to be tough to get the votes" for full funding, Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran told Reuters in an interview. Democrats "feel like they won this election and this right to control the Congress because of disagreements that the majority of the American people have had with the waging of the war," Cochran said. But some states back the war with his home state of Mississippi continuing to support Bush, he added. For the past two years, Cochran headed the Senate committee that oversees all federal spending, losing the appropriations chairmanship when Democrats took control of the Senate from Republicans in November's elections. As a result, he said he expects efforts in the Senate to deny some money Bush needs to fund expanded combat in Iraq or rein in the administration's authority for the war, now in its fourth year. "The sky is the limit," said the 69-year-old conservative senator, who has spent the last 34 years in Congress. The Senate likely will vote next week on a nonbinding resolution disapproving the 20,000 troop increase. That could be followed by a tougher resolution to put conditions on Bush's ability to continue waging the war and moves to limit funding. The soft-spoken Cochran, who said he has no deadline for ending the war nor a "break point" for withdrawing his support of it, was quick to register his opposition to tying Bush's hands in Iraq. "I think the president is on the right track. We've changed the plan. They've (Iraq's government) agreed to assume more authority" for the war and security, Cochran said. In the House, Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said he will use his chairmanship of a defense spending panel to possibly deny some money for the troop buildup and try to put conditions on other funds that would slow redeployments. That and other Democratic proposals have kicked off a debate over whether Congress or Bush, as commander in chief of the military, holds the power to wage war. While Cochran places his trust in Bush, he has no hesitation about Congress' role. "Congress does have the power of the purse and it goes without having to be said. It has the power to appropriate, it has the power to limit, reduce the funds, spell out how funds can be used and not be used. That's the power Congress has," said Cochran. But he added that "the way the system works now it really does require cooperation between the executive (Bush) and Congress to carry out missions." It is that level of cooperation that Bush and Democrats are trying to figure out in the new political landscape of the 110th Congress. So far, some Republicans in Congress have not exactly rushed to the aid of the White House. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska last week said Bush's troop buildup had the makings of "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam." In Cochran's eyes, Mississippi, unlike much of the country, has not turned against Bush's war. "My impression is Mississippi tends to support the chief executive on national security efforts," Cochran said, adding, "There's a strong sense of patriotism in our state ... we have an attitude if the country has a problem, whether it's military or otherwise, we have volunteers, people who want to join in the effort to solve the problem."
