Washington – Implicitly criticizing the Bush administration’s reliance on the Iraqi central government to unify the country, the Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly endorsed the decentralization of Iraq into semiautonomous regions. The action came after President Bush and Congress sparred over nearly $190 billion the Pentagon says is needed to keep combat in Iraq afloat for another year.
The nonbinding measure sponsored by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. – which supports a so-called “federal system” that would divide Iraq into sectarian-dominated regions – won unusually broad bipartisan support, passing 75-23. It attracted 26 Republicans, 47 Democrats and both independents.
“Slowly but surely, we’re building a consensus in the Congress around a way forward in Iraq,” said Biden, who worked with conservatives, such as Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and liberals, such as Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to get the measure through.
After the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., cast it as an indictment of Bush’s war strategy, although the measure will not compel the administration to do anything differently.
Biden’s proposal, which he outlined a year and a half ago, was once dismissed by the Bush administration and many on Capitol Hill as an unworkable and irresponsible prescription for breaking apart Iraq. But as the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stumbled in its efforts to unify the warring religious and ethnic communities, the idea of a country divided among Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites has taken on new currency.
Kurds already have a largely autonomous entity in northern Iraq with a separate president and parliament. And the Bush administration’s new emphasis on “bottom-up” efforts to create a civil society, such as those it has touted among Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province, have been seen as a de facto endorsement of a more decentralized approach in Iraq.
The White House reacted tersely, however, and noted that the measure conditions the policy change on the agreement of Iraqis.
No “rubber stamp”
Also on Wednesday, Sen. Robert Byrd, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, vowed not to “rubber stamp” the Pentagon’s request for $189 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and said it was time to put Bush’s policies in check.
“We cannot create a democracy at the point of a gun,” said Byrd, D-W.Va., whose speech during a Senate hearing on the spending request was interrupted several times by cheers of war protesters.
If the Pentagon’s request is approved, Congress would have appropriated more than $760 billion for the two wars, having already approved of $450 billion for Iraq and $127 billion for Afghanistan.
Sens. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and Wayne Allard, R-Colo., added an amendment to the Senate’s defense authorization bill that requires the Army to produce a report detailing why it needs to expand its Fort Carson training site in Piñon Canyon. It also requires the Government Accountability Office to review the report.
Allard and Salazar also joined with Sen. Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning, both Kentucky Republicans, in an amendment setting a deadline of Dec. 31, 2017, for destroying weapons stockpiles at the Pueblo Chemical Depot. It would come into play if the Pentagon fails to meet the 2012 deadline agreed to in a treaty.
Denver Post staff writer Anne C. Mulkern and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
