|
Reid sets Iraq litmus test |
|
By Elana Schor
|
|
Posted: 05/14/07 07:50 PM [ET] |
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) yesterday offered a unique litmus test for Democrats seeking a strongly anti-war supplemental, slating two votes to gauge support for competing plans for Iraq withdrawal.
Caught between a Democratic base hungry for increased congressional pressure on President Bush and a White House not shrinking from a second veto, Reid proposed — and cosponsored — two Iraq redeployment amendments to the water-resources bill. The amendments, which could come to a vote as soon as tomorrow, are certain to present a tangle of choices for senators chasing both reelection and the White House.
Reid’s first amendment, mirroring a measure first crafted by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), would give the Senate’s strongest war critics a symbolic victory similar to that won by the House Out of Iraq Caucus late last week. The second amendment replicates the first emergency supplemental that was vetoed last month, while adding waivers to allow Bush to sidestep any Iraq withdrawal timeline.
“As badly as we all recognize we need to get a bill to conference, we’ve not on this side of the aisle … lost sight of the fact that the American people have concluded the president’s Iraq policy has failed,” Reid said on the floor yesterday.
The unexpected strategy of using the water-resources bill as a testing ground for war policy puts Democratic leaders on track to start a conference with the House by week’s end. Yet the outcome of the two Iraq votes does not guarantee that strong withdrawal language will make it into the bill that reaches Bush’s desk. Reid is leaving all options on the table, according to a spokeswoman.
Reid’s move may effectively head off a push by Feingold and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) for a vote on the tougher withdrawal language as an amendment to the Senate’s next supplemental. Feingold issued a statement welcoming the planned vote, while not reversing his plan to vote against any supplemental that lacks a binding strategy to hasten troop redeployment.
“The American people deserve to have the Senate go on record about whether it wants to end our misguided mission in Iraq and safely redeploy our brave troops,” Feingold said.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Armed Services Committee chairman and lead author of the supplemental language, hailed the new vote as the “second best” approach to winding down the war — second only to the previous vetoed supplemental.
“By providing for the presidential waiver, we are removing any reason for the president to veto the supplemental funding bill,” Levin said in a statement.
More than two-thirds of House Democrats backed a stringent withdrawal plan in a Thursday vote orchestrated by the Out of Iraq Caucus, emboldening many war critics in the chamber even as the underlying language failed. Far fewer Senate Democrats are likely to back the Feingold-Reid amendment, but one majority-party aide said few in the Senate were looking to the House for a forecast.
“We’re dealing with something totally different here, in terms of the pressure the majority leader is under to come up with something that can get passed,” the aide said.
Reid has eschewed criticism of the House’s two-part Iraq supplemental while quietly pursuing his own course. The Senate is poised to enter conference talks with significant momentum even if both test amendments fail, since Reid could contend that a supplemental with benchmarks alone is the only way to gain a veto-proof majority.
Democrats hope the new supplemental strategy will weigh on wavering Republicans who could embrace the vetoed language with new waivers, but three Democratic senators will be under mounting pressure of their own. Dodd is the only 2008 candidate on record in favor of the Feingold plan, a gold standard for liberal voters and bloggers alike that calls for most troops to leave Iraq by April 2008.
Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Joseph Biden (D-Del.) all have favored alternative plans to end the war and could face a public backlash if they fail to endorse Feingold’s language.
Reid’s move also sets up a potentially sticky situation for Republicans, who would be forced to vote against a water-resources bill that includes billions of dollars in GOP-backed special projects if either of the anti-war amendments
hitch a ride on the must-pass water measure.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office did not immediately return a call for comment on Reid’s new approach. But Reid said he discussed strategy with McConnell before offering the water-resources amendments, and some Republicans even praised Feingold’s language this year as an intellectually honest approach that would force Democrats to acknowledge a desire to cut off funding for the war.
The language that fell short in the House last week sets a six-month timetable to complete troop withdrawal, twice as short as Feingold’s. House Out of Iraq members also added several other anti-war provisions that are closely identified with various senators.
The House would have capped troop numbers at their Jan. 1 levels, as Dodd, Clinton and Obama have suggested; narrowed the authorization for troops remaining in Iraq, as Clinton and Biden have suggested; and allowed new deployments to Afghanistan or Iraq’s neighbors, as Clinton and Obama have suggested.
|
