Top Story USA
19
January 2007
Senators set showdown with White House
Baltimore Sun, MD - 1 hour ago Two Republicans supported a
Democrat driven Senate resolution opposing President Bush's
21,500-troop escalation in Iraq and setting up a showdown between
the White House and Congress over the Iraq war.
Two senior Democrats and a prominent Republican introduced
a symbolic measure to declare that the Bush’s plan to
send more troops to Iraq runs counter to the national interest.
Another Republican senator announced her support.
Though the bipartisan resolution would have no legal power
over Bush’s plan of troop escalation, it was important
nonetheless, argued the senators.
The nonbinding resolution drafted by Sens. Joseph R. Biden
Jr., a Delaware Democrat; Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican;
and Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, has exposed the fissures
within the GOP over the Iraq war.
"I will do everything I can to stop the president's policy
as he outlined it [last] Wednesday night," Mr. Hagel said.
"I think it is dangerously irresponsible."
"It is not in the national interest of the United States
to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by
escalating the United States military force presence in Iraq,"
the resolution states.
Hagel, a possible presidential contender in 2008, called the
resolution a "genuine bipartisan effort."
Sen. Olympia Snowe, a moderate from Maine, said she would endorse
the resolution that would put the Senate on record as saying
the U.S. commitment in Iraq can be sustained only with support
from the American public and Congress.
However, some Republicans criticized the proposal as a means
to embarrass Bush. They predicted failure of the resolution.
|