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Senators spar over U.S. commitment in Iraq« Thread Started o

Daily newsbrief journal for June 2006, also see http://www.usdemocrats.com/brief for a global 100-page perpetual brief and follow twitter @usdemocrats


Senators spar over U.S. commitment in Iraq« Thread Started o

Postby admin » Fri Jan 27, 2012 8:45 am

Senators spar over U.S. commitment in Iraq« Thread Started on Jun 19, 2006, 3:40am »--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Senators spar over U.S. commitment in IraqSunday, June 18, 2006; Posted: 11:59 p.m. EDT (03:59 GMT) read source: http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/18/ ... WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Pat Roberts said Sunday that setting a timetable to pull U.S. troops from Iraq would show American resolve to be "very shaky," but Sen. Dianne Feinstein said the U.S. commitment is unsustainable.Roberts, a Kansas Republican and the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, and Feinstein, a California Democrat on that panel, spoke two days before a planned debate on the Senate floor over whether there should be a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq."Three years and three months into the war, with all of the losses, the insurgency, the burgeoning civil war that's taking place -- what was it, seven bombings in Baghdad yesterday? -- an open-ended time commitment is no longer sustainable," Feinstein said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.""I don't think it's sustainable from the military point of view in terms of troop commitments. I don't think it's sustainable in terms of what Americans think about the war," Feinstein said. "A timetable, some goals, some discussion with the Congress by the administration. The president might not have wanted to have done that early on, but three years and three months and a bogging down, I think, suggests that the time has come for some discussion as to where we go from here."Feinstein said she will introduce a resolution with two other Democrats -- Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, and Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada -- calling for "phased redeployment."Roberts was unmoved by Feinstein's argument."Why would you give the opportunity for the terrorists to simply rejoice and simply wait us out?" he said.Roberts said recent developments, including the killing by U.S. forces of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, might represent a shift in the war, given that Iraqis were responsible for the tip that led U.S. authorities to him. (Full story)"When you're seeing the Iraqis starting to step away from fear and starting to really cooperate like they have, when you see a new president really setting priorities on the electrical grid and water and better life for the people of Baghdad, and when you see progress, at least to some extent, I don't think now is the time to set a timetable."But public support for the war has slid for the past year as the U.S. death toll, which topped 2,500 last week, has climbed. A CNN poll released Friday found 54 percent opposed the war, with only 38 percent favoring it.A majority of those polled -- 53 percent -- said the United States should set a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq, but they split 47-47 on whether the troops should come home within a year. (Full story)This week's Senate debate is similar to the one the House of Representatives mounted last week, when lawmakers passed a nonbinding resolution that rejected an "arbitrary" date for withdrawing from Iraq. The Republican leadership in the House pushed for the resolution in hopes of portraying Democrats as weak on the war ahead of congressional elections in November.Feinstein said she's simply putting a sharper point on what Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said last week. Al-Rubaie told CNN that it is possible that fewer than 100,000 coalition troops would be in Iraq by the end of the year, and nearly all would be gone by the end of 2007 or early 2008."I don't know why we are so afraid to stand up and say, look, we want to see an end to this thing," Feinstein said. "It seems to me that the time has come. Three years and three months into a mission that was supposed to take 30 or 40 days -- that isn't cutting and running."Roberts said he hopes al-Rubaie is proved correct, but that a timetable would send the wrong message to other countries."It signals to people that our resolve is very shaky, that the battle of wills is also shaky," he said
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