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Senate votes 50-48 to keep withdrawal date for troops |
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By Elana Schor
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Posted: 03/27/07 07:31 PM [ET] |
Senate Democratic leaders scored a significant win late yesterday, as two Nebraskan converts threw their support behind language in the emergency supplemental that sets a 120-day window to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who voted against setting a timetable for redeployment earlier this month, opted this time to oppose a GOP amendment striking the target date of March 2008 for removing most troops from the field. The 48-50 vote, which saw Vice President Dick Cheney paying a rare visit to the floor, effectively puts both houses of Congress on record in favor of withdrawal for the first time, because Republicans have all but ruled out a filibuster of the supplemental.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) appeared with senior members of his caucus immediately after the vote.
“This is not a vote where there are winners and losers. It’s a vote for the American people,” Reid said, adding that he “so admired the courage” of Nelson and Hagel.
Nelson had remained undecided until hours before the vote, attributing his final choice to the move by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) to strike not only the withdrawal timetable but a list of findings on the intractable nature of the Iraq conflict.
“We can’t win Iraq’s civil war — that will take the Iraqi leadership,” Nelson said in a statement. “Congress must begin the process of making the Iraqi government responsible for Iraq. To do so, we must deal with both the funding and future role of our troops.”
Hagel’s conversion was more expected. The possible presidential contender made comments on television last weekend that strongly criticized President Bush’s conduct of the war.
“This idea that somehow you don’t support the troops if you don’t continue in a lemming-like way to accept whatever this administration’s policy is, that’s what’s wrong, and that is dangerous,” Hagel said on the floor before the vote.
The White House issued a new statement of administration policy yesterday promising to veto the supplemental once it clears conference committee, citing both the troop withdrawal language and $20 billion in spending added by appropriators. But Nelson echoed senior members of both parties in urging Bush to negotiate workable language with Congress, if possible.
Reid told reporters that he wants to reach out to the White House. But the first order of business will be conference meetings with the House that could turn contentious over the upper chamber’s less stringent pro-withdrawal language. Reid said he and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) aim to begin the process during next week’s recess. They will also hold at least some public conference meetings in April, a promise of transparency that he made after the Democrats took power.
“This is a new thing for the president,” Reid told reporters yesterday. “In six years he’s had one veto, because he’s basically gotten everything he wanted.”
Sens. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), still recovering, and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) were not present for the vote. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) voted with Republicans to strike the withdrawal provisions, as he did on this month’s earlier consideration of the war.
Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) voted with the Democrats. |
