Senate Rejects Calls for Iraq Troop Withdrawal
The stricter of the two bills being voted on--a measure that would have mandated a pullout by 2007--went down 86-13 The bill that didn't have a timetable was defeated 60-39, with all but one Republican and six Democrats voting against the measure UPDATE: The Senate is weighing a modest troop reduction in the coming months .The stricter of the two bills being voted on–a measure that would have mandated a pullout by 2007–went down 86-13. The bill that didn’t have a timetable was defeated 60-39, with all but one Republican and six Democrats voting against the measure.
UPDATE: The Senate is weighing a modest troop reduction in the coming months.
WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...AP:
The GOP-controlled Senate on Thursday rejected Democratic calls to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq by year’s end, as the two parties sought to define their election-year positions on a war that has grown increasingly unpopular.
“Withdrawal is not an option. Surrender is not a solution,” declared Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, who characterized Democrats as defeatists wanting to abandon Iraq before the mission is complete.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, in turn, portrayed Republican leaders as blindly following President Bush’s “failed” stay-the-course strategy. “It is long past time to change course in Iraq and start to end the president’s open-ended commitment,” he said.
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From the archives: In 2006, the social activist warned that an increasingly mainstream anti-war movement can be prone to loss of focus.
While affirming the Dec. 31, 2011, date for the pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did mention in a speech to a Washington think tank the possibility of extending that deadline if Iraqi forces still required "further training and further support."
About 1,300 Palestinians dead, $2 billion in damage and thousands of devastated families later, Israel claims it has officially pulled its troops from the Gaza Strip after its three-week assault -- with no formal deal between Israel and Hamas and thus no real change in relations between the two sides.
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