The Washington Post reports that the proposal sponsored by Senators Jim Webb, Democrat from Virginia, and Chuck Hagel, Republican from Nebraska, went down to defeat yesterday. It needed 60 votes to pass. It got 56. On its face the amendment was for the benefit of our troops. It would have required that troops rotating out of combat would be guaranteed an equal amount of time away from the front as was spent at it.
"Our Republican colleagues are more interested in protecting our president than our troops," Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said moments before the vote, when defeat appeared certain. "This is Bush's war. Don't make it also the Republican senators' war."
But we should keep in mind the many of those voting to "protect the trooops" are the same folks who compared them to Nazis and accused them of terrorizing women and children when politics of the moment suited them. But that was then, this is now, and anti-war Democrats found hope in a new strategy.
Of all the Iraq measures now pending before the Senate, as part of an annual defense policy debate, Democrats had viewed the Webb proposal as one of the few that could gain broad enough support to become law. The measure would have required that troops be granted home leaves at least as long as their most recent combat deployments before being sent back to war. Its focus on troops and their families, rather than on military strategy, had attracted more GOP backing than Democratic bills that had set withdrawal timetables or had targeted war funding...
...Reading between the lines, Republicans detected another aim. By limiting the pool of people who would be eligible for deployment, they believed that Democrats were attempting to force the troop reductions that they had failed to bring about legislatively.
But Department of Defense officials outlined the problems the bill would cause, and made their case to wavering senators. In the end it was Senator John Warner, Republican from Virginia, who stemmed the Democratic anti-war tide.
Addressing Webb on the Senate floor, Warner explained: "I agree with the principles that you've laid down in your amendment, but I regret to say that I've been convinced by those in the professional uniform that they cannot do it."
Republicans who had been expected to switch votes and line up behind the bill stayed home.
Comments