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Republican unity at risk despite defeat of Dem Iraq amendment |
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By Elana Schor
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Posted: 07/12/07 07:08 PM [ET] |
Senate Republicans hung together yesterday to defeat the first in a series of Democratic attempts to force a new course in Iraq, but simmering frustration and fresh defections left GOP unity hanging by a thread.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to insist on a 60-vote threshold to attach most war amendments to the defense authorization bill, daring Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to file multiple motions to end debate. The initial test of that strategy, on a troop-readiness offering from Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), ended with Democrats four votes short.
“This was not about politics. This was about the right thing to do with regard to the men and women we ask to defend our country,” Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Webb’s chief GOP backer, said after their amendment went down, 56-41.
Yet politics undeniably came into play for the six Republicans who joined Hagel and Democrats in favor of requiring troops to receive a rest period at home equal to the length of their deployments. All but one of the seven GOP supporters are facing a reelection battle next year: Sens. Norm Coleman (Minn.), Susan Collins (Maine), Gordon Smith (Ore.), John Sununu (N.H.), John Warner (Va.) and Hagel.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine) was the final Republican embracing a readiness plan that many in the GOP still deride as a backdoor redeployment. Minutes earlier, brushing off the White House’s entreaties to allow more time for signs of success in Iraq, Snowe signed on to the Democrats’ leading anti-war proposal.
“We cannot continue to keep our brave military men and women on the front lines if the Iraqi government is unwilling to put national interests above their own sectarian interests,” Snowe said.
She became the third Republican, with Hagel and Smith, to endorse a proposal from Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) that requires troop withdrawals to begin within four months and largely end by next spring. Snowe’s announcement increases the pressure on Collins, who said she ultimately may support Levin and Reed.
That amendment is not the only magnet for the war’s GOP critics. Sens. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) are likely to receive a vote on their plan to implement key recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, opening the door for most troops to leave by early next year.
Although Reid criticized the Iraq Study Group amendment for not having “the teeth of a toothless tiger,” Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the plan would come up “late in the process.” The study group proposal could further splinter the GOP, but Durbin acknowledged that Democrats would be unlikely to hail its passage.
“I don’t know that we can claim victory if we can’t bring the troops home,” Durbin said, adding that the study group amendment misses that mark.
The White House national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, met with Alexander and several of his supporters yesterday.
Multiple centrists are working on amendments of their own, including Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Warner, with an assist from Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio); and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Collins, with an assist from Coleman.
Even as Webb vowed to return with a new version of his plan, tension among Republicans consumed much of the Senate’s oxygen. Addressing reporters to tout the GOP victory, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) described the war as “badly mismanaged, terribly mismanaged for a number of years,” prompting reporters to ask McConnell if he agreed with that assessment.
McConnell declined to answer the question and sidestepped inquiries about the political pressure on Republicans up for reelection in 2008 — including himself — to heed voter discontent over the war.
Underscoring that pressure, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee unleashed new ads blasting the GOP leader in his home state for staying loyal to a failed strategy in Iraq.
Indeed, the latest GOP senator to push for a start to troop withdrawal is also in cycle next year. Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) acknowledged that this week’s Iraq progress report, which President Bush has previewed with some senators, shows dismal performance from Baghdad.
“Our commitment in Iraq is not indefinite, nor should the Iraqi government perceive it to be. It is my firm hope and belief that we can start bringing our troops home in 2008,” Dole said in a statement late Tuesday, adding that she remains opposed to Democrats’ withdrawal amendments.
With Republicans badly in need of a rallying cry, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) released a non-binding measure emphasizing the possibility that drawing down troops would doom Iraq to more brutal violence.
Cornyn plans to seek a deal on a vote for his language, committing the Senate “to a strategy that will not leave a failed state in Iraq.”
Also yesterday, senators overwhelmingly approved Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D-Conn.) plan to require periodic reports on Iran’s role in fostering the Iraqi insurgency.
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