E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

More on the Senate Vote on the War
Culled from the Guardian.
In the Senate, after weeks of skirmishing, Republicans easily turned back Democratic legislation requiring a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days. The measure set no fixed deadline for completion of the redeployment, but set a goal of March 31, 2008. The vote was 50-48 against the measure, 12 short of the 60 needed for passage.

Senate Democrats promptly said they would try again to force a change in Bush's policy beginning next week when they begin work on legislation providing money for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It took weeks for the Senate to agree to hold a formal debate on Democratic calls for a change in war policy, and by the time it occurred, the result was utterly predictable. So much so that Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is running for the White House in 2008, skipped the vote to campaign in Iowa.
Thanks for standing up for the troops, John.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky led the opposition to the measure. ``This is a dangerous piece of legislation. It is constitutionally dubious and it would authorize a scattered band of United States senators to tie the hand'' of the commander in chief, he said. McConnell said it would be ``absolutely fatal'' to the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada disputed that. ``Five years of war, the president's current approach in Iraq is not working. The country is closer to chaos than stability. U.S. troops are policing a civil war, not hunting and killing the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11.''

Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon was the only Republican to support the measure. Democrats Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska opposed it, as did Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent Democrat.

For their part, Republicans sought to create a political dilemma for Democrats, countering with an alternative measure that said ``no funds should be cut off or reduced for American troops in the field'' that would undermine their safety. GOP leaders hoped the proposal, advanced by Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, would prove difficult for Democrats to oppose and complicate any future effort to reduce funds for the war. Gregg's amendment passed 82-16.

Democrats tried still another proposal, this one saying that Congress would provide ``necessary funds for training equipment and other support for troops in the field.'' It passed easily, 96-2.
So we're all for training and equipping them, and we (so far) won't tie Bush's hands. Whatever the House does is meaningless, but then we knew that.

Posted by: Steve White 2007-03-16
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=183215