Whoa: Senate *Republicans* Push Plan to End Iraq War

[WilliamPitt]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/politics/15cong.html?hp&ex=1132117200&en=1b0f7720627f5fd3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Senate Republicans Pushing for a Plan on Ending the War in Iraq

By CARL HULSE
Published: November 15, 2005

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - In a sign of increasing unease among Congressional Republicans over the war in Iraq, the Senate is to consider on Tuesday a Republican proposal that calls for Iraqi forces to take the lead next year in securing the nation and for the Bush administration to lay out its strategy for ending the war.

The Senate is also scheduled to vote Tuesday on a compromise, announced Monday night, that would allow terror detainees some access to federal courts. The Senate had voted last week to prohibit those being held from challenging their detentions in federal court, despite a Supreme Court ruling to the contrary.

Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who is the author of the initial plan, said Monday that he had negotiated a compromise that would allow detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to challenge their designation as enemy combatants in federal courts and also allow automatic appeals of any convictions handed down by the military where detainees receive prison terms of 10 years or more or a death sentence.

The proposal on the Iraq war, from Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, and Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, would require the administration to provide extensive new quarterly reports to Congress on subjects like progress in bringing in other countries to help stabilize Iraq. The other appeals related to Iraq are nonbinding and express the position of the Senate.

The plan stops short of a competing Democratic proposal that moves toward establishing dates for a phased withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But it is built upon the Democratic approach and makes it clear that senators of both parties are increasingly eager for Iraqis to take control of their country in coming months and open the door to removing American troops.

...more...

[Name removed]

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[mzmolly]

4. Did you read the article where it says Dems have a more aggressive plan?

Sheesh - ya'll.

[Noisy Democrat]

6. Must be why Kerry introduced his plan last week

'cause he's such a wussy and all. That kick-ass speech he gave today, too, blasting Bush to shit -- more wuss, right?

[WilliamPitt]

8. That matters?

What do you want more? An end to the war, or the Dems getting credit for it?

I'll take door #1, thanks. No one is going to forget which party pushed this thing in the first place.

[fedupinBushcountry]

16. Did you watch the debate

on the Senate floor today. The Republicans took the Dems admendment and changed the wording in selective spots.

For instance in the Dem Admendmentit is stated "U.S. troops should not stay in Iraq indefinitely and the people of Iraq should be so advised.

The Republicans changed the word "indefinitely" to "any longer than required". To me that still says as long as it takes.

Also Lieberman is voting for the Warner Admendment, not the Levin one. That tells me that there is no end in sight. Sorry.

[WilliamPitt]

18. See post 17

[FreedomAngel82]

19. So they're basically stealing the democrats plans!!

So they can stay in power. Ugh! We all know they'll probably have some fake "Mission Accomplished" part two nonsense and fool people but in reality the troops will be in there just like now for a long time. *sigh*

[libhill]

25. Indeed -

the bastards are running scared, so they're putting on a big show, which will last about long enough to steal, uh, I mean win the '06 elections. Then it'll be back to "stay the course", "Dem's hate America", and all the other b.s. and rhetoric.

[tuvor]

2. Not really surprising.

bush's numbers are in the tank, and there are elections on the horizon.

Lessons learned from last week's elections, perhaps.

[Wetzelbill]

12. yes, they need some separation from the blind "stay the course"

stuff.

[mzmolly]

3. Can the Senate/House ursurp the President in a case such as this?

I'm curious if they overwhelmingly pass legislation if * would be out of luck? ;)

Yea, I know "read the constitution."

[shockingelk]

5. Important story - recommend:

Mr. Warner said the underlying message was, "we really mean business, Iraqis, get on with it." The senator, an influential party voice on military issues, said he did not interpret the wording of his plan as critical of the administration, describing it as a "forward-looking" approach.

"It is not a question of satisfaction or dissatisfaction," he said. "This reflects what has to be done."

Read: Senate Republicans getting sick of whatever "staying the course" means

[Seabiscuit]

7. Friggin' spineless beltway dems pre-empted again.

And on their way to the ash heap of history.

[WilliamPitt]

9. Oh what redolent bullshit

See post #8.

[Seabiscuit]

11. No one will forget the dems never ended the war if that's the case, Will.

And in that case, the Democratic Party will not recover any kind of standing in Congress for a long, long time.

Call it bullshit all you want. I'm sick and tired of the spineless bullshit emanating from so many dems in D.C. since 2001.

[WilliamPitt]

13. Rilly?

They won't forget the minority with no power didn't end the war?

Jeepers, we're doomed.

Or something.

[Seabiscuit]

36. Or something...

I'm not the only one who feels this way:

"One question for any Democrat: Who will have the balls to get us out of Iraq? If the Democrats don't step up and fill this vacuum, the Republicans will. They will take us out of Iraq. And then the Democrats will be left holding the bag -- first as the enablers who let the Republicans take us into an unnecessary and immoral war, and then as the whipping boys who stood by while the Republicans kept justifying what was clearly an unnecessary and immoral war. They were so worried about positioning themselves as hawks, not being seen as soft on terror and war, that they lost the capacity for outrage when the person responsible for a legal memo that denied the validity of the Geneva Conventions was appointed Attorney General. And it was downhill from there."

"The Republicans, especially leading up to the 2006 elections, with the Bush administration crumbling, KNOW they have to find a way out of Iraq. So they will basically find a way to declare victory and do something that looks like a withdrawal, and the Democrats will be left as passive bystanders -- because they don't have the courage to suggest that people who lied to get us into war should not only not be in office, they should be in prison."

"Last Tuesday, Harry Reid demonstrated wonderful signs of life. The question now is, are they going to build on this, or is it going to be an isolated episode that doesn't lead to a fundamental shift? Will enough Democrats now be willing to admit that voting to authorize the war was a mistake? Whether they were genuinely misled, they bought into it, or they were too cowardly to vote for what they believed was true, it was a mistake. Will they now have the courage to say, 'This was wrong, and that we need to get our brave troops out of Iraq now.' Are the Democrats going to offer an alternative plan to get us out of Iraq? Are they going to fill this vacuum created by the chaos in Iraq and a scandal-plagued administration in tatters, or are they going to wait for the Republicans to do it their way, reap the political diviedends, and leave the Democrats sniping outside the palace gate?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-cusack/on-bush-the-dems-jon-st_b_10485.html

I don't "rilly" think you're content with the status quo today, Will.

[Wetzelbill]

10. Lindsey Graham, for all his faults, is a guy who will surprise you....

He's an idiosyncratic guy for sure. He was a Jag lawyer, still a member of the Air Force Reserve too, I think, so he's on the level when it comes to some of this enemy combatant BS. Sometimes he makes sense.

Left-Winger is from SC and he told me once that Lindsey Graham used to be a total tool of the Christian Right when he was in the State Lege there. Now much of the Christian Right don't like him because he's become more moderate on those issues. Most of us know him as one of the House Managers who argued the Clinton Impeachment. Now he's buddies with Hillary. Go figure.

Although this plan stops short of a phased withdrawal, you can only imagine that at some point they have to earnestly address if and when that will happen. Never expect a total withdrawal though. Not when we have economic interests there.

[Rainscents]

14. Republicans are playing polictic! I don't buy this crap... soon as they

get reelected, they're going to have amendment retracking their votes and continue with war. Please, don't buy into bullshit!!! Republicans are only doing this because '06!

[libhill]

27. Bingo -

they are morally bankrupt scumbags, who will say and do anything that suits their immediate goals of staying in power.

[welshTerrier2]

15. sadly, this isn't really accurate about the republicans' war plan

i watched the back-and-forth congenial floor discussion tonight between Carl Levin and John Warner ...

the background is that Warner and Frist "tweaked" the language in the proposal that Levin had made ... they made 3 modifications to the initial language ...

first, Levin had language to the effect that bush should state that we do not intend to remain in Iraq "indefinitely" ... the Frist-Warner amendment changed that language to state that we would remain in Iraq only "as long as necessary" or words to that effect ...

second, there was a minor difference on a technical point between the Democrats' asking for something to be done in "30 days" and the republicans wanting "90 days" ... neither side considered this issue significant ...

but difference #3 was huge ... the essential difference was that the republican version completely removed Levin's concluding paragraph ... that paragraph created a very specific linkage between the achievement of benchmarks (mostly based on the training of Iraqi troops) and a phased withdrawal of American troops from Iraq ... the key point was the idea of LINKAGE ...

the republicans saw this as a "timetable" and struck the language from the bill ... this means that they agreed that bush should provide a more detailed plan for how the war will be waged and quarterly reports to the Congress showing exactly what progress was being made, but that there would be no pre-defined correlation between progress and withdrawal ...

the difference is huge ... though i wish it weren't so, i'm afraid the republican plan is little more than window dressing ...

[WilliamPitt]

17. Of course it is. That isn't the point.

REPUBLICANS are talking about getting out of Iraq. Not just some randoms, but Frist the majority Leader.

Bush just last Friday handed the country a big fat bag of "Stay The Course," with McCain backing him to make Bush look moderate. Bush specifically implied that those who are criticizing the war are demoralizing the troops and giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

...and now the Republican majority is criticizing the war. Any discussion of getting out is de facto criticism.

At least we've forced them to fucking talk about it.

There's gonna be a good show in the House on Thursday. This looks to be an interesting week.

[flyarm]

22. on sunday talk shows a rethug pundit was saying

they will have at least 60,000 out before mid term election.;damn i wish i could remember who it was..brain funk here..

fly

[welshTerrier2]

26. they may be talking about it but it's not in their "plan"

the republican "plan" being pushed in the Senate has NO language about getting out ... that was the whole point that frustrated Levin during tonight's debate ...

it calls on bush to provide a more detailed plan "for success" but it is 100% disconnected from the withdrawal of US troops ...

perhaps republicans will make a push to take the war off the table next year to save them politically ... why do i think it will all be for show and we'll be stuck in Iraq at least into 2008?

[mrdmk]

29. The Republicans are requiring more reports, looks good on paper

But about some oversight, like get the reports already that are late, I mean really late! Lets start with, 'How money is being spent in Iraq', report. He is a real barn-burner, the Senate report for, 'Why was the White House and Appointees of the White House saying one thing about Iraq in 2002 and tried and true Intel Agencies saying just the opposite'(Oh,gee didn't quite get that one buried) with redactions without the black ink (in the name of security) just a blank page given to the general public who is paying for the dam war anyways.

The Republicans with the conspiring LMSM will not get much mileage out of this one. If the congress does pass a bill to end the Iraq war, Mr. Bush Jr. will just veto it anyway. Move along, nothing to see.

[endarkenment]

40. We will be stuck in Iraq either until the oil runs out

or we manage to dislodge The Cabal from power. They have no intention of leaving.

All of the plans that pretend that there will be some gradual withdrawal are bullshit. The exit will be precipitous when it comes.

These plans are bullshit as the current forces on the ground are just barely managing to maintain base security and convoy supply security. Reduction of these forces - for example the illusory 60,000 mentioned in the OP - would result in a drastic destabilization and would be a threat to the safety of the remaining 100,000 or so troops.

Equally bullshit is the explanation that Iraqi forces would provide the missing force. This explanation is as lacking in reality as the vietnamization program of the last stage of that failed colonial expedition.

What we will see is a shell game where 20,000 or so troops are gradually added to the standard 135-140,000 and then in a blaze of publicity are ceremoniously withdrawn. We are already in the midst of just such a con game - with troop levels quietly approaching the 160,000 mark. After the december election farce there will be a staged troop reduction. Expect similar bullshit as the 06 campaign goes into high gear.

[Nordmadr]

41. I was watching this last night on C-SPAN, and Levin corrected

himself, stating that the DEM plan also would require the 90 day update as well. He said he misspoke.

As you stated though, the true difference appears to be the Dems trying to establish clear benchmarks that would then lead to an actio on the part of our government to reduce or modify our troop presence accordingly. Sure makes sense to me, which is why it won't happen.

Olaf

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Color me surprsied, NOT

[Quixote1818]

21. Republicans see the hand writing on the wall. They HAVE TO TAKE

this route if they want to win in O6'. The only way they can win is to separate themselves from Bush as far as possible. They know Iraq is a swamp and this is the ONLY route which makes any sense.

[nolabels]

24. Yes, but they must be stupid, * will only veto the bill

The compromises will never get done after the veto either. There are just too many greedy people on both sides of the aisle to override the veto. It will be like watching a cat trying to cough up a hairball. It's almost like hairy-carry no matter which way they go.

Should be fun watching though :popcorn:

[Quixote1818]

28. True but then the Republicans who voted for it can claim their

independence from Bush in 06'.

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. DING, DING, DING

[nolabels]

32. Do you think that would wash, many of them hold committee chair seats

There will be more than enough people asking why them congressional investigations are not going on.
They are ALL running out of places to hide, real fast


Mr. Bush, Meet Mr. Taft
One more time with the tired dissent-is-disloyalty line? Here's some ammo for anyone who thinks dissent equals loyalty.
(snip)
Taft, the conservative Ohio senator who is a hero to many of today's conservatives, gave a speech at the Executive Club of Chicago in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. There are a number of paragraphs that are just grand, but here's the best one, which is worth quoting in full:

As a matter of general principle, I believe there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government ... too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think that it will give some comfort to the enemy to know that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.

Drink in those words. That's not William Fulbright two years into the Vietnam War. It's not Ted Kennedy last week. It's Mr. Republican, speaking -- when? Not mid-1943, or even March 1942. Taft delivered this speech ... on December 19, 1941!

That's right: Twelve days after the worst attack on American soil in the country's history, perhaps with bodies still floating in the harbor, the leader of the congressional opposition said to the president, we will question, we will probe, we will debate.

And he was right to do so. In fact, when I was researching this, I came across no evidence that Taft's assertion was even controversial. As I wrote in Salon: "Taft's speech hardly caused a ripple. If The New York Times covered it at all, it did so in a small enough way to escape my notice as I looked through newspapers from that time. The Washington Post did mention the speech, but only at the tail end of a larger story that was mostly about Hull. In the American political system that existed then, Taft's right to speak his mind on policy was a given, and no high-ranking Roosevelt official launched a major public attack."
(snip)
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10618
http://www.antiwar.com/

[eridani]

33. Thanks very much for that blast from the past

Copying and sending around.

[Marr]

23. This is just talk.

Nothing but politics, trying to outflank the Democrats ahead of the election season and convince people that, if they just stick with the Republicans, we'll be out of Iraq soon.

The Republican Party is the political arm of the arms, oil, and reconstruction industries. They have absolutely no reason to give up control of Iraq and it's resources. They've been trying to set up the usual client thug state in Iraq, but it just isn't working- and it doesn't look like it ever will. Until they can get the natives to secure those markets for Corporate America themselves, Republicans will keep US troops there.

[LaPera]

31. Some sort of compromise will be made to save the republicans for the 2006

elections...Count on it...Expect it!

It makes political sense....BushCo will have to go along with anything to hold the majority in the houses in 2006...And afterwards...

Yes, those dastardly Syrians & Iranians, will need to be taught a lesson. Not to mention, they'll also need more troops, again, in Iraq to "stop them"...For their "never ending wars" for profit! (OIL).

First things first though...2006 elections, hold the houses, avoid hearings and then, business, (killing & stealing) as usual.

[SoCalDem]

34. They just want to be out in front, and they probably know that

being velcro-ed to *² will not help them get re-elected in 06..

[donheld]

35. Are they just wanting to do this for mid-term elections

or do they really care?

[Disturbed]

37. If the Repubs are serious they will stop the funding until

an accounting of the $20 Billion that has gone missing has been accounted for.

[katinmn]

43. It's all about the mid-terms.

[chenyu]

38. Only using force isn't a good way in the Iraq

Bush should find a good way in the Iraq.Only using force isn't a good way.the US soldiers don't instead of Iraq's police permanently.why is Iraq's police powerless?I think Bush' policy in Iraq is wrong.a government obeying the US completely would be powerless in Iraq.the Iraq's situation is complex.election in all over Iraq isn't realizable.I think local election is realizable.per district should form two political party.if a party opposed the US policy,but it don't attack the US troop in force,the US should allow this party entering the Iraq local government.the US should not to interfere local election.in local election,if a party opposed the US triumph,the US should admit it also.

[robbedvoter]

39. That would imply that Bush&co actually gives a f* about democracy

Force was good enough for his purposes; his oil buddies are making a killing!

[newyawker99]

46. Hi chenyu!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[katinmn]

42. With the Repugs in control of government, this is the only way...

Who cares who gets credit?

Congress members of both parties finally realize they will not survive any election if they continue to ignore the wants of the majority of Americans.

This is a win for Americans who have been working to end this war since before it started.

Keep pushing!!

[bluedog]

44. its either pull out or start the DRAFT

[RSchewe]

45. Not exactly right. Dems came out with a plan and the Repubs stole it. n/t