Partisan Lines Solidify as Republicans Thwart Democrats Again on an Iraq Vote
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 — Democrats and Republicans in the Senate continued their circular debate over the Iraq war on Thursday, with the same arguments and the same voting results.
A Democratic proposal that would have immediately changed the mission of American troops, required the withdrawal of all combat forces by the end of June 2008 and then cut off financing for military operations in Iraq received only 28 votes on Thursday, falling far short of the 60 needed to prevent a Republican filibuster.
The outcome was widely expected and followed the failure on Wednesday of the proposal that Democrats had put forward as their best chance of shifting the war strategy.
Even before the vote on Thursday, the Democrats began articulating the message that is likely to be their mantra for months: the Republican minority in the Senate is defying the will of a majority of Congress and a majority of Americans by blocking legislation to hasten the end of the war.
“A majority of the House and a majority of the Senate want to change the direction of the war in Iraq,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, told reporters. “We have voted accordingly on more than one occasion, in fact on many occasions. But the House having done their job, they come to the Senate and the Senate Republicans, the vast majority of them will not allow us to change the direction of the war in Iraq.”
(Continued here.)
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 — Democrats and Republicans in the Senate continued their circular debate over the Iraq war on Thursday, with the same arguments and the same voting results.
A Democratic proposal that would have immediately changed the mission of American troops, required the withdrawal of all combat forces by the end of June 2008 and then cut off financing for military operations in Iraq received only 28 votes on Thursday, falling far short of the 60 needed to prevent a Republican filibuster.
The outcome was widely expected and followed the failure on Wednesday of the proposal that Democrats had put forward as their best chance of shifting the war strategy.
Even before the vote on Thursday, the Democrats began articulating the message that is likely to be their mantra for months: the Republican minority in the Senate is defying the will of a majority of Congress and a majority of Americans by blocking legislation to hasten the end of the war.
“A majority of the House and a majority of the Senate want to change the direction of the war in Iraq,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, told reporters. “We have voted accordingly on more than one occasion, in fact on many occasions. But the House having done their job, they come to the Senate and the Senate Republicans, the vast majority of them will not allow us to change the direction of the war in Iraq.”
(Continued here.)
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