Two weeks after a Texas congressman tried force a House vote on his bill mandating that servicemembers be paid first in the event of a government shutdown, only nine representatives have signed on.

The so-called discharge petition requires 218 signatures.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, filed the bill in March only to see it stuck in committee. During a press conference on July 14 he announced he would use a House rule that allowed members to petition to get a bill onto the floor. At that time he expressed confidence that he’d have the backing, claiming he had 190 co-sponsors.

"We need to make sure the military, people in harm's way that are dodging bullets, never have to have it cross their minds that their paychecks may not come in," Gohmert said at the time. He was joined there by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who had filed similar legislation in the Senate, where it has also languished in committee.

Pay for servicemembers – as well as checks for disabled veterans and retirees – is at risk if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling beyond the $14.3 trillion now allowed by law. The White House has said it cannot promise that these and other obligations, including Social Security, will be met if the debt ceiling is not raised by Aug. 2.

Hutchison, speaking Tuesday on the Senate floor, urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, to allow her bill to come up for a vote.

"We have people in the military with boots on the ground by the thousands that are making under $20,000 a year,” she said. “Those are people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck. They don't have the luxury of having a big savings account."

While it’s not surprising that Reid is keeping Hutchison’s bill in committee, Gohmert’s House version has also failed to get his own GOP leadership’s support for letting House members vote on the bill.

Earlier this month Gohmert said that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, was fully aware of his bill to pay troops first and his wish to have members vote on it.

Leaders on both sides do not want to remove military pay from the debate because they believe that having it at risk will make it easier for lawmakers to go along with a deal for which they otherwise would not vote.

A top US adviser on Iraq has accused the US military of glossing over an upsurge in violence, just months before its troops are due to be withdrawn.

Iraq is more dangerous now than a year ago, said a report issued by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart W Bowen Junior.

He said the killing of US soldiers and senior Iraqi figures, had risen, along with attacks in Baghdad .

The report contradicts usually upbeat assessments from the US military.

It comes as Washington is preparing to withdraw its remaining 47,000 troops from Iraq by the end of the year, despite fears that the Iraqi security forces might not be ready to take over fully.

"Iraq remains an extraordinarily dangerous place to work," Mr Bowen concluded in his quarterly report to Congress. "It is less safe, in my judgment, than 12 months ago."

The report cited the deaths of 15 US soldiers in June - the bloodiest month for the American military in two years - but also said more Iraqi officials had been assassinated in the past few months than in any other recent period.

While the efforts of Iraqi and American forces may have reduced the threat from the Sunni-based insurgency, Shia militias are believed to have become more active, it said.

They are being blamed for the deaths of American soldiers, and for an increase in rocket attacks on the Baghdad international zone and the US embassy compound.

Additionally, the report called the north-eastern province of Diyala, which borders Iran, "very unstable" with frequent bombings that bring double-digit death tolls.

Mr Bowen accused the US military of glossing over the instability, noting an army statement in late May that described Iraq's security trends as "very, very positive" - but only when compared to 2007, when the country was on the brink of civil war.

A spokesman for the US army in Iraq declined to respond.

More than 10,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are homeless or in programs aimed at keeping them off the streets, a number that has doubled three times since 2006, according to figures released by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The rise comes at a time when the total number of homeless veterans has declined from a peak of about 400,000 in 2004 to 135,000 today.

“We’re seeing more and more (Iraq and Afghanistan veterans),” says Richard Thomas, a Volunteers of America case manager at a shelter in Los Angeles. “It’s just a bad time for them to return now and get out of the military.”

The VA blames the rise on a poor economy and the nature of the current wars, where a limited number of troops serve multiple deployments.

The result is a group of homeless veterans where 70 percent have a history of combat exposure with its psychological effects, says Pete Dougherty, a senior policy adviser on homelessness at the VA.

Among all homeless veterans, perhaps 20 percent to 33 percent were in combat, he says.

LaShonna Perry, a former Army mechanic who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was homeless for more than year after leaving the military. She rented an apartment last year with a federal voucher.

“Some soldiers still have issues they’re dealing with from what they’ve seen, what they’ve experienced,” she says. “Some think, ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’ They can deal with it on their own. Until it gets out of control.”

As of May, there were 10,476 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans either living on the streets, in temporary housing or receiving federal vouchers to help pay rent for an apartment.

About 13 percent are women, the VA says.