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With eye on elections, Senate debates Iraq war

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 June 2006, 14:52 CDT

By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a debate likely to shape November's elections, the Senate fought bitterly on Wednesday over measures pushed by Democrats to wind down U.S. involvement in Iraq that Republicans derided as "cut-and-run" strategies.

Republicans sought to turn the tables on Democrats over the war, depicting them as weak on terrorism and casting Iraq as the front in a terror war that would otherwise move to the United States.

Democrats, banking on the war's unpopularity in their bid to regain control of Congress in the midterm elections, said their amendments showed their united opposition to President George W. Bush's policies.

But they offered two plans -- one to start withdrawing U.S. troops this year but without a deadline to finish withdrawal, and another to pull out combat forces by July 2007.

Most Democrats, shying away from setting a pullout deadline for fear that could lead to a full-scale Iraqi civil war, backed the nonbinding resolution crafted by Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island calling for the start of the withdrawal but with no timetable.

But about a dozen were expected to support the amendment to put a deadline into law that is being pushed by Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, who both have eyes on presidential runs in 2008.

Some senators were expected to support both amendments in votes expected on Thursday, seeing the Levin-Reed amendment as a fallback position.

Republicans called them "cut-and-run" and "cut-and-jog" amendments that showed fissures in the Democratic Party.

"It's been interesting to watch the Democrats debate among themselves," said Senate Republican Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He expressed confidence the Republican-controlled chamber would defeat both measures.

Democrats lashed out that Republicans were trying to exploit for their political gain a war in which 2,500 U.S. soldiers have died.

'PARTISAN SQUABBLE'

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat and another likely presidential contender, questioned whether the issue was "a strategy to win in Iraq or a strategy for Republicans to win elections here at home." She accused them of turning the debate "into a partisan squabble designed to mislead voters."

Reed said his amendment was intended to "begin to transition the burden from American military shoulders" to Iraqis. "This isn't cut and run ... it is an attempt to articulate a policy based on the reality of Iraq."

Moderates from both parties facing tough re-election bids this fall were warily assessing their positions.

"The problem is I have a primary election separate from a general election. Every vote is going to be under attack," said Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Republican in heavily Democratic Rhode Island who has angered his party by bucking Bush on a number of issues.

Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat in Republican-dominated Nebraska, said, "I'm not for a date for withdrawal ... but I also don't think we ought to be there indefinitely and I'm a little concerned about what the president said when he said the next president will resolve this."

Capitalizing on Bush's statement that some decisions on Iraq would be left to the next president, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, had an amendment expressing the sense of the Senate that U.S. troops should not still be in Iraq at or near current levels of about 130,000 in 2009, his aide said.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, decried the partisanship over the war. He also blasted the Democratic amendments.

"It is a timetable no matter how many times people protest it is not a timetable," Warner said of the Reed-Levin amendment. He said it would "encourage terrorism, embolden al Qaeda" and threaten U.S. security.

Source: REUTERS

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