|
WASHINGTON: Democrats have scored a victory in the
Senate in the fight to withdraw US troops from Iraq, but the
Congress majority still faces a long road ahead amid stiff
opposition from President George W. Bush.
Democrats beat back Tuesday an
attempt by Bush’s Republicans to strip a provision in a war
spending bill that would set a March 31, 2008, deadline to withdraw
troops from Iraq.
The Senate voted 50-48 against a
Republican amendment that would have removed the pullout timetable.
A vote on the entire spending bill, with the withdrawal date, could
take place as soon as Wednesday.
“Today was a significant step
forward in our efforts to change course in Iraq and makes America
more secure,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said after
Tuesday’s vote.
“The president must change
course, and this legislation gives him a chance to do that,” he
said.
The legislation would impose a
binding requirement for troop withdrawal to begin 120 days after
passage.
Democrats already succeeded in
setting a withdrawal timeline in the House of Representatives as the
lower chamber passed last week its own $124-billion version of the
emergency spending bill with a deadline to get troops out of Iraq by
August 31, 2008.
If the Senate legislation passes,
the two chambers will have to negotiate to reconcile the bills. But
Bush has vowed to veto a withdrawal timeline.
The president “is disappointed
that the Senate continues down a path with a bill that he will veto
and has no chance of becoming law,” White House spokeswoman Dana
Perino said in a statement after Tuesday’s vote.
Both the House and Senate require
a two-thirds vote to override a presidential veto, but the Democrats
are unlikely to gather the necessary votes.
“This is not one battle; it’s
a long-term campaign to persuade the president, to pressure the
president to change course. And we will keep at it,” said Sen.
Chuck Schumer.
“We make no mistake about it,
we have many more steps to go. But we will persist until we get
there,” the New York Democrat said.
Democrats have said voter disgust
with the course of events in Iraq prompted many voters to choose
them over Bush’s Republican party in the November elections that
gave them control of Congress.
With Iraq teetering on the brink
of civil war, they said, it is time to accelerate moves to withdraw
US forces.
“Nothing else has been
successful in convincing the Iraqis that they have to take
responsibility for their own country, and that they must make the
political compromises that are necessary to end the sectarian
violence and defeat the insurgency in Iraq,” Sen. Carl Levin, top
Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said before
Tuesday’s vote.
“Only when the Iraqis realize
that the mission of US forces in Iraq is changing and that we are
going to reduce the number of US forces in Iraq, will they realize
that we cannot save them from themselves and that they need to act
to meet the commitments they made to us and to themselves,” he
said.
The defeated Republican
amendment, introduced by Sen. Thad Cochran, came on the second day
of Senate debate over spending an additional $121.6 billion for the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We need to be speeding this
funding to our troops rather than slowing it down by returning to a
debate already settled by the Senate,” Cochran said as he
introduced his measure this week.
--AFP
|
