House passes politically charged Iraq resolution
GOP-engineered vote rejects deadline for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13338901/
(Gold9472: Bring up 9/11 complicity on the House floor, and tell me how long our soldiers would stay in Iraq and Afghanistan.)
6/16/2006
WASHINGTON - The House on Friday rejected a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq, culminating a fiercely partisan debate between Republicans and Democrats feeling the public’s apprehension about war and the onrushing midterm campaign season.
In a 256-153 vote, the GOP-led House approved a nonbinding resolution that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an “arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment” of troops is not in the national interest.
“Retreat is not an option in Iraq,” declared House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. “Achieving victory is our only option, for the American people and our kids.”
“Stay the course, I don’t think so Mr. President. It’s time to face the facts,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California answered, as she called for a new direction in the conflict. “The war in Iraq has been a mistake. I say, a grotesque mistake.”
Four months before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, House Republicans sought to force Republicans and Democrats alike to take a position on the conflict that began with the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003.
Democrats denounced the debate and vote as a politically motivated charade, and several prominent Democrats joined Pelosi in saying they would vote against the measure because, they said, supporting it would affirm Bush’s “failed policy” in Iraq.
Senate vote
The House vote comes one day after the Senate soundly rejected a call to withdraw combat troops by year’s end by shelving a proposal that would allow “only forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces” to remain in Iraq in 2007.
That vote was 93-6, but Democrats criticized the GOP maneuver that led to the vote as political gamesmanship and promised further debate next week on a proposal to start redeploying troops this year.
The president has tried to rally support for the Iraq war in the days since the death of terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the recent completion of a new Iraqi government.
But as the death toll and price tag of the conflict continue to rise, opinion polls show voters increasingly frustrated with the war and favoring Democrats to control Congress instead of the Republicans who now run the show.
Sensitive to those political realities, Republicans in both the Senate and House sought to put lawmakers of both parties on record on an issue certain to be central in this fall’s congressional elections.
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