Senate panel rejects Bush’s Iraq strategy

updated 3:11 p.m. ET Jan. 24, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed President Bush’s plans to increase troops strength in Iraq on Wednesday as “not in the national interest,” an unusual wartime repudiation of the commander in chief.

The vote on the nonbinding measure was 12-9 and largely along party lines.

“We better be damn sure we know what we’re doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder,” said Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, the sole Republican to join 11 Democrats in support of the measure.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the panel’s chairman, said the legislation is “not an attempt to embarrass the president. ... It’s an attempt to save the president from making a significant mistake with regard to our policy in Iraq.”

House will hold vote on measure
The full Senate is scheduled to begin debate on the measure next week, and Biden has said he is willing to negotiate changes in hopes of attracting support from more Republicans.

House Democrats intend to hold a vote shortly after the Senate acts.

Even Republicans opposed to the legislation expressed unease with the revised policy involving a war that has lasted nearly four years, claimed the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops and helped Democrats win control of Congress in last fall’s elections.

“I am not confident that President Bush’s plan will succeed,” said Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, senior Republican on the committee.

But he said in advance he would vote against the measure. “It is unclear to me how passing a nonbinding resolution that the president has already said he will ignore will contribute to any improvement or modification of our Iraq policy.”

“The president is deeply invested in this plan, and the deployments ... have already begun,” Lugar added.

He suggested a more forceful role for Congress, and said lawmakers must ensure the administration is “planning for contingencies, including the failure of the Iraqi government to reach compromises and the persistence of violence despite U.S. and Iraqi government efforts.”

Divisions over the war were on clear display as the committee met.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said he wanted to change the measure to say flatly that the number of troops in Iraq “may not exceed the levels” in place before Bush announced his new policy. The suggestion failed, 15-6.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., sought to amend the legislation to show support for an increase troops in the Anbar province in western Iraq, but not in Baghdad, where the sectarian violence is particularly fierce. His proposal also fell, 17-4.

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., chastised fellow lawmakers, accusing them of being reticent to respond to Bush’s plans. He said he would seek passage of legislation at a later date cutting off funds for the war.

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