Washington – Wading into a tough partisan battle over America’s involvement in Iraq, Ken Salazar urged his fellow senators Wednesday to endorse a timetable for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops.
A nonbinding amendment to a defense measure co-sponsored by the Colorado Democrat urges the Bush administration to begin withdrawing forces from Iraq by the end of this year. The legislation was the subject of intense debate on the Senate floor Wednesday, with a vote expected today.
A competing Democratic amendment would require the administration to remove U.S. troops from Iraq by July 2007. The two plans reflect divisions among Democrats over the party’s response to the war as fall elections approach.
A similar measure, requiring withdrawal by Dec. 31 of this year, was offered earlier by a pro-war Republican seeking to exploit differences among Democrats. It was defeated last week, 93-6.
Salazar on Wednesday criticized the Bush administration’s “fingers-crossed, stay-the-meandering-course approach” and urged senators to stop “sitting on our hands while policy drifts from one goal and mission to another with no end in sight.”
“U.S. forces cannot and should not remain in Iraq indefinitely,” Salazar said.
From the other side of the aisle, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., opposed the Salazar- backed amendment, which, he said, “undermines everything we have achieved.”
“Why would we risk our success by a premature withdrawal?” Allard asked. “Why would we risk handing Iraq over to terrorists when they are on the run?”
Salazar is an original co-sponsor of the nonbinding measure offered by Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island. It urges President Bush to start a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of the year, to convene an international summit on Iraq and to set a timetable for further reductions of troop levels in 2007.
Salazar’s staff was involved in discussions that led to the amendment’s drafting, Salazar spokesman Andrew Nannis said. The Coloradan appeared with Levin and Reed at a news conference Monday announcing the measure.
“Simply staying the course sends the wrong signal to the people of Iraq,” Salazar told reporters. He said Bush’s call for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for the rest of his presidency, and into the next, is “not exerting the type of pressure we need to put on the Iraqi government to get their house in order.”
The second Democratic amendment, offered by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., calls for a complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq by July 1, 2007.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said passage of such measures would represent “a significant step on the road to disaster” in Iraq.
If the Senate sets a deadline for U.S. involvement in Iraq, said McCain, terrorists and insurgents will be emboldened, Iraq’s democrats will quail and “the only question will be the degree to which increased violence engulfs the country, and a civil war erupts.”
While acknowledging that the U.S. has “made serious mistakes” in its Iraq policy, McCain said the country has “a moral duty” to see its involvement through to a successful conclusion.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. – offering a glimpse of her and McCain’s possible rivalry in the 2008 presidential campaign – said it is time for “a strategy to win in Iraq” rather than “a strategy for Republicans to win elections at home.”
A continued U.S. presence in Iraq allows insurgents and terrorists to “hide behind the cloak of nationalism,” Salazar said. And Levin, citing testimony by U.S. military commanders, echoed their warnings about the dangers of “creating a dependency” of unlimited duration.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, countered: “We are handing the enemy a playbook” when announcing a timetable for withdrawal.
The Bush administration’s policies have been successful at combating terrorists, Hutchison said. “We have not had an attack in the United States of America (since 2001) because we have been vigilant at fighting them on their turf.”
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said he would vote against the Salazar and Kerry amendments but warned his GOP colleagues against excessive partisanship.
Using slogans like “cut and run” to deride the legitimate concerns of those who harbor doubts about U.S. policy, he said, undermines American unity. “Keep it out of politics … (and) the ‘gotcha’ mentality America is sick of,” Hagel said. “America deserves better. Our men and women fighting and dying deserve better.”
