Senate Holds Election-Year Debate on Iraq

06/20/2006

WASHINGTON (AP) - Fierce election-year debate on Iraq spilled over into a second week on Capitol Hill with Senate Democrats lining up behind a proposal to start U.S. troop withdrawals this year and Republicans chastising them for espousing a “cut-and-run” strategy.

“Let me be clear: Retreat is not a solution,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. “Cutting and running is bad policy that threatens our national security and poses unacceptable risks to Americans.”

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., disputed Frist’s characterization of the Democrats’ nonbinding resolution on Iraq and stressed that it would not set a firm deadline by which all forces must be out of the war zone.

“The administration’s policy to date, that we’ll be there for as long as Iraq needs us, will result in Iraq’s depending on us longer,” said Levin, top-ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. “Three-and-a-half years into the conflict, we should tell the Iraqis that the American security blanket is not permanent.”


In what Republicans and Democrats alike are billing as perhaps the Senate’s largest debate on Iraq since the war began in spring 2003, the Senate is to take up the resolution Tuesday and vote on it sometime this week.

The debate comes a week after the GOP-controlled Senate and House soundly rejected timetables for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq, back-to-back votes that forced lawmakers in both parties to go on record on the issue less than five months before midterm elections.

As the U.S. death toll and war spending continue to climb, polls show the public increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of the conflict.

Democrats in Congress have long been split over the way ahead in Iraq, and Republicans have sought to highlight those divisions in recent weeks. In control of Congress, the GOP is seeking a political advantage as recent polls show the public favoring Democrats to run the House and Senate.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., failed to get her caucus to rally around one position on Iraq last week. Senate Democrats also spent the week struggling to come up with a “consensus” position.


In the end, Senate Democrats brushed aside calls by some of their rank-and-file for a firm withdrawal timetable and on Monday proposed the resolution that would urge - but not require - the administration to begin “a phased redeployment of U.S. forces” this year. It also would call for the administration to give Congress by year’s end its plan for “continued redeployment” after 2006.

Additionally, the resolution would call for American troops, which have been focused on combat operations in Iraq, to more quickly transition to “a limited mission of training and logistic support of Iraqi security forces, protection of U.S. personnel and facilities, and targeting counterterrorism activities.”

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada backs the resolution, and his aides say they expect 38 to 40 Democrats and a few Republicans to vote for the symbolic statement. However, they don’t expect to get the 51 votes needed to attach the resolution to an annual military bill.

“America understands, and the majority of people in the Senate understand, that we can’t sit here and wave the white flag,” Frist said Tuesday on CBS’"The Early Show.”

Even as the GOP leadership criticized the resolution, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, called it “a very serious-minded approach.” He declined to endorse it but nonetheless promised to give it careful consideration.

Three Democrats seeking a stronger position on Iraq - John Kerry of Massachusetts, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Barbara Boxer of California - intend to push for a vote on their own proposal.

It would require the administration to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by July 1, 2007, leaving in place only U.S. troops essential to training Iraqi security forces, conducting counterterrorism operations and protecting U.S. personnel and facilities.

“A deadline gives Iraqis the best chance for stability and self-government, and most importantly, it allows us to begin refocusing on the true threats that face our country,” Kerry and Feingold, two Democrats eyeing potential presidential candidacies in 2008, said in a joint statement.

Their proposal is expected to be rejected overwhelmingly.