The Daily Background
| What’s up with Clinton’s Iraq legislation?
by Arlen Parsa
I’m somewhat conflicted about the idea Hillary Clinton has, which is to have a re-authorization vote on the war in Iraq. On the one hand, anything that peels resistant Republican senators away from the White House on this issue is a good step in the right direction. But on the other hand, it smacks of trying to have a “do-over” on the issue in order to try and please the Democratic base, and as we all know, with wars there are no do-overs– especially with the number of Americans and Iraqis dead and tax dollars down the drain.
On the first point, about Republican senators splitting with Bush, the Times provides this today:
Two leading Republican senators said today that President Bush should seek a new war authorization and present a plan to Congress by Oct. 16 outlining contingency plans in Iraq. Those plans, which would include reducing American forces, should begin by the end of the year.
Senators John W. Warner of Virginia and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, both of whom have criticized the administration’s troop buildup plan, introduced a measure expected to be considered next week when the Iraq war debate resumes.
On the second point, Senator Obama feels that Clinton’s idea is somewhat convoluted:
“If you simply repeal the language, then presumably you’d have to reauthorize something. You’ve got 150,000 troops over there and support personnel,” Obama told The Associated Press in an interview after a campaign stop in Las Vegas.
“Why we would try that approach as opposed to simply setting a timetable for withdrawal strikes me as a convoluted approach to the problem,” he said.
I guess at the end of the day, putting a re-authorization vote on the table would be a step in the right direction, but the obvious question is, where do we go from there? It doesn’t call for troops to be withdrawn, it merely says that Bush no longer has authorization for the war (and does anyone really think that will stop it?).
No, what’s needed is straight-up legislation requiring withdrawal… the only other plan I’ve liked other than that is the one that Vietnam vet-turned-Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) presented this past week, calling for troop readiness that required a reinstatement of longer periods of time at home between deployments for US soldiers (unfortunately that bill was killed by Republicans in a vote of 56-41, four votes short of the 60 it required).
