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June 22, 2006

Senate rejects Democratic efforts to withdraw troops

WASHINGTON -- The Republican-led Senate today rejected two Democratic efforts to put the United States on a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, further hardening a partisan split that reflects the American public's division and looms as a major issue in November's elections.

"Withdrawal is not an option," Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said shortly before this morning's votes. "Surrender is not an option."

With Rhode Island's Democratic Sen. Jack Reed among the leaders of the opposition, the Senate first rejected a liberal Democratic bid to withdraw all U.S. combat troops by July 1 of next year.

Then in a closer but still decisive margin, the Senate killed a more modest troop-withdrawal resolution by Reed and Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and other Democrats.

That measure fell, 60-39. Reed's fellow Rhode Island senator, Lincoln Chafee, was the only Republican to vote with Reed-Levin.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who faces a primary challenger opposed to the war, was one of the six Democrats who voted against the Reed-Levin measure.

The vote to kill Kerry's amendment to the 2007 Senate defense authororization bill was 86-13. It followed two days of highly charged partisan debate on the wisdom of setting any specific timetable for a pullout.

Reed and Chafee both voted against the Kerry amendment.

The GOP had denounced both measures as embodiments of a Democratic strategy to "cut and run" from Iraq – a charge the Democrats hotly disputed

-- John E. Mulligan, Journal Washington bureau

Posted by Andrea Panciera  at 12:17 PM | Permalink

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