GOP starts to see things Reid's way on war
| By User from Washington, DC - May 17, 2007 4:17:40 PM ET |
| Also listed in: Featured Bloggers |
Check out this article in the Las Vegas Sun:
The Senate's growing impatience with President Bush's Iraq war strategy can be seen not only in the maneuvering by Majority Leader Harry Reid. It is also apparent in the evolving positions of Nevada Sen. John Ensign and other Senate Republicans.
Just three months ago, Ensign declined to return to Washington for a Saturday vote expressing the Senate's displeasure with Bush's open-ended troop surge. Ensign called it political posturing by Democrats. He chose to play golf in Nevada instead.
Ensign joined a majority of senators, primarily Republicans, on Wednesday to support a plan that would begin to assert oversight of the war by imposing benchmarks on the Iraqi government and withholding economic development aid if those targets are not met.
Read more. . .
The Senate's growing impatience with President Bush's Iraq war strategy can be seen not only in the maneuvering by Majority Leader Harry Reid. It is also apparent in the evolving positions of Nevada Sen. John Ensign and other Senate Republicans.
Just three months ago, Ensign declined to return to Washington for a Saturday vote expressing the Senate's displeasure with Bush's open-ended troop surge. Ensign called it political posturing by Democrats. He chose to play golf in Nevada instead.
Ensign joined a majority of senators, primarily Republicans, on Wednesday to support a plan that would begin to assert oversight of the war by imposing benchmarks on the Iraqi government and withholding economic development aid if those targets are not met.
Read more. . .
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There is "no way" the war in Iraq can be won by the United States and its allies, a former British Army commander said Friday as he called for the troops to be withdrawn.
General Sir Michael Rose, who commanded the
United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia-Hercegovina from 1994 to 1995, said coalition forces in Iraq were facing an impossible situation.
Though the coalition could not simply "cut and run," Rose said announcing a withdrawal date would help to dampen down the violence between Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions.
"Give them a date and it is amazing how people and political parties will stop fighting each other and start working towards a peaceful transfer of power," he said.
UK and US must quit Iraq quickly, says former ambassador
The British and American military presence in Iraq is worsening security across the region and should be withdrawn quickly, the UK's former ambassador to Washington warned yesterday.
Sir Christopher Meyer acknowledged that leaving Iraq would be "painful", but said the mission was not worth the death of one more serviceman. "I personally believe that the presence of American and British and
coalition forces is making things worse, not only inside Iraq but the wider region around Iraq. The arguments against staying for any greater length of time themselves strengthen with every day that passes," Sir Christopher said.
In another sign that Republicans on Capitol Hill are impatient with the White House's Iraq strategy, two more GOP senators Thursday got behind legislation designed to encourage the Bush administration to reduce U.S. military involvement.
Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback and Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith are co-sponsoring a nonbinding resolution by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., that urges support for creating semi-autonomous regions for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq, a plan Biden has been championing for more than a year.
That comes a day after five GOP senators signed on to separate legislation that would enact the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which envisioned that U.S. troops could start coming home next March.
That legislation -- championed by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Ken Salazar, D-Col. -- has the backing of several GOP loyalists, including Sens. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Robert Bennett of Utah.
Democrats have put the squeeze on congressional Republicans, many of whom have expressed misgivings about the war but have not yet worked up the courage to vote against their president and the war. A number of Republicans lost in 2006 because of the Iraq War. As the November 2008 elections approach, Republicans will increasingly be tempted to abandon their support for a failed war.
Congressional Republicans are clearly squirming….
House Republican leader John Boehner (R-OH) told Fox News Sunday on May 7: "By the time we get to September or October, members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn't, what's Plan B."
There are other indications of Republican turmoil. On May 9, a group of a dozen or more moderate House Republicans met with Bush at his private quarters to issue a blunt warning that if war conditions don't improve by the fall, many Republicans may desert him on the war.
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has called for the immediate closure of the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Speaking on US television, Mr Powell said detainees held there should be transferred to prisons in the US.
He also called for the abolition of the military tribunal system, saying terror suspects should face trial under existing US federal laws.
"If it were up to me I would close Guantanamo not tomorrow but this afternoon," Mr Powell told US NBC's Meet the Press television programme.
"Essentially, we have shaken the belief the world had in America's justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like the military commission."
"Time is running out -- to less than three months -- on GOP forbearance on Iraq."
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"Sen. Richard Lugar, a senior Republican and a reliable vote for President Bush on the war, said that Bush's Iraq strategy was not working and that the U.S. should downsize the military's role."
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ABC News reports that the White House is in a panic mode over GOP defections.
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