GOP Blocks Troop Withdrawal, Now Faces Heat From Voters
WASHINGTON _ With lawmakers bleary-eyed and irritable from an all-night debate, Senate Democrats shelved a massive defense policy bill Wednesday after Republicans blocked their amendment to start withdrawing troops from Iraq.
The 52-47 vote in favor of ending debate and moving to a final vote on the withdrawal amendment was eight votes short of the 60-vote supermajority needed under Senate rules to force an end to the orations and 15 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to override a presidential veto.
The vote showed that Republicans still overwhelmingly support President Bush’s war policies and retain enough power in Congress to sustain them, especially when backed by Bush’s veto power. The House of Representatives voted 223-201, largely along party lines, in favor of a similar withdrawal plan last week, far too few to override a veto.
“As long as the president has that support, he’s going to be pretty much able to call the shots in Iraq,” said Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman and Democrat who served as co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group.
But at least 13 Senate Republicans have questioned Bush’s troop increase, and more say they expect a mid-September progress report on the troop surge to prompt a change in war strategy.
“Time is on our side,” predicted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Meanwhile, Democrats said they’re willing to let the important annual authorization bill linger without further action through the August recess or longer to allow pressure from a war-weary public mount on Republicans to join them in trying to bring U.S. troops home.
“Our colleagues in the Senate are going to have a chance to go home, explain their votes and vote again,” said Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill. “And eventually, I am confident, they’ll join us in changing the direction in Iraq.”
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., accused Democrats of putting politics before the needs of American soldiers, and he predicted that Republicans would hold together.
The withdrawal amendment would’ve begun withdrawing combat troops from Iraq in four months and limited the mission there by April to fighting terrorists, training Iraqis and protecting other Americans. It was sponsored by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Jack Reed, D-R.I. It also had three Republican co-sponsors: Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, also sided with Democrats, but said she didn’t support the withdrawal amendment _ she only wanted to end the GOP’s procedural stall on it so it could go to an up-or-down vote.
Throughout the long night and into Wednesday morning, senators stood, one after another, arguing that American lives and national security were at stake.
Democrats argued that Iraqis were targeting Americans even as U.S. forces tried to protect them and that the only way to force Iraq’s Shiite-led government to share power and resources was to announce a U.S. withdrawal.
“Our brave servicemen and women are dying and being wounded while Iraqi leaders dawdle,” Levin said. “And because they haven’t kept their commitments, our troops are paying the price, caught in the crossfire of a civil war.”
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Iraqi politicians couldn’t be expected to solve their political problems quickly or before Iraq’s violence is brought under control. “I hope we will do nothing that would lead to the likelihood of a failed state and give al-Qaida a foothold in Iraq,” he added.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, “What I hate the most is that because of the next election, we can’t set aside our differences and focus on what we have in common: providing our troops with what they need.”
The authorization bill covers myriad aspects of defense policy, from treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to equipment levels.
While it wouldn’t take effect until fiscal 2008 begins on Oct. 1 and isn’t technically needed in order to continue military funding, the bill contains several politically popular elements: a 3.5 percent military pay increase, more money for mine-resistant vehicles known as MRAPS and improved care and benefits for wounded veterans.
Reid said he doesn’t intend to abandon the authorization bill for good. The 52-47 vote on the withdrawal amendment reflected Reid’s vote against it, a procedural maneuver that allows him to call up the amendment later for reconsideration.
But before he brings it up again, Reid said, he wants it to include “a deadline dealing with Iraq.”
“If that’s tomorrow, we’ll do it tomorrow,” he said. “If it’s later, we’ll do it later.”
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a decorated Vietnam veteran, former prisoner of war and presidential candidate who has steadfastly opposed troop withdrawals even as he has criticized aspects of the Bush administration’s war strategy, was especially passionate in debate.
“I am much more sad than I am angry,” McCain said. “It could be for the first time in 45 years that the Congress of the United States, not just the Senate but the Congress of the United States, has not passed a defense authorization bill and had that bill signed by the president.
“I am privileged as we all are to be subject to the judgment of the American people and history,” McCain said. “They are not always the same judgment.”
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(c) 2007, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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