Senate says no to Iraq pullout

WASHINGTON -- Just hours after the Senate rejected U.S. troop withdrawals, a Democratic challenger to Sen. Mike DeWine charged that the Republican "failed Ohio's military families today by voting for more of the same in Iraq."

Acting equally swiftly, the GOP's Senate campaign committee criticized Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey as an "ultra-liberal" who cast a "vote to surrender in Iraq."

Neither DeWine nor Menendez would agree with the opposition's characterizations of their positions.

But that's the political reality of Senate votes on the war in a midterm election year. Both Republicans and Democrats end up with ammunition to use against one another during campaigns.

Putting lawmakers from both parties on record Thursday, the Senate defeated Democratic demands to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq in what amounted to an endorsement of President Bush's Iraq policy.

Vice President Dick Cheney criticized the Democrats' position, saying on CNN, "Absolutely the worst possible thing we could do at this point would be to validate and encourage the terrorists by doing exactly what they want us to do, which is to leave."

But Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said, "Demanding a change of course is not irresponsible. It's not unpatriotic. It is the right thing to do." He criticized Bush and Republicans in Congress as being "content with no plan and no end in sight."

The administration has repeatedly said that U.S. troops will stay in Iraq until Iraqi security forces can defend the country against a lethal insurgency that rose up after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.

In back-to-back votes, the Senate agreed with the president and turned back two Democratic proposals to begin withdrawing most of the 127,000 American forces in the war zone.

The first, offered by Sen. John Kerry and supported by 12 other Democrats but no Republicans, would have required the administration to start pulling troops out by year's end. It also would have set a deadline of July 2007 for all combat forces to leave.

"Redeploying United States troops is necessary," said Kerry, D-Mass.

Most senators didn't agree, and the proposal fell on a 86-13 vote.

Minutes later, the Senate defeated by 60-39 a resolution to urge the administration to begin "a phased redeployment of U.S. forces" sometime this year. The resolution would not have set a deadline for the end of the U.S. presence in Iraq.

That vote was largely along party lines.

Siding with all but one Republican were six Democrats -- Sens. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and three running for re-election this fall: Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Bill Nelson of Florida and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who also is in the midst of a difficult re-election campaign, was the only Republican supporter of the resolution.

Despite the Democratic defections, Reid said his rank-and-file were united. "Every Democrat agrees that the direction of the war in Iraq must change, and change now," he said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, for his part, said Democrats backed "cut and run" plans for surrender. "The Senate defeated a bad policy that threatens our national security and poses unacceptable risks to Americans," Frist said.

The maneuvering occurred on a $517 billion military measure that the Senate later passed 96-0.

At a Pentagon briefing, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said he expected reductions in U.S. forces this year but did not agree with congressional efforts to put a timetable on the effort.

"I don't like it, I feel it would limit my flexibility" and give the enemy a schedule to focus on, said Gen. George Casey.

On Capitol Hill, the two parties' competing assessments previewed likely lines of attack little more than four months before Election Day.

Republicans are working to hang onto control of Congress and overcome polls showing the public favors a shift to Democrats. Faced with problems of their own, Democrats are seeking to capitalize on voter discontent with Bush's handling of the war.

In a fiercely partisan debate over two days, Senate Republicans opposed any timeline and painted Democrats as reckless with national security. The GOP said a premature pullout and a public pronouncement of any such plan would risk all-out civil war, tip off terrorists, threaten U.S. security and cripple the Iraqi government just as democracy was taking hold.

"A policy of retreat," declared Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said leaving Iraq would "risk disaster" there. "Withdrawal and fail, or commit and succeed," he said, laying out the choice as Republicans see it.

Many Democrats, for their part, chastised Republicans who, they said, blindly backed the president. They suggested that the GOP would pay a price in November for standing with Bush's war policies.

"A rubber-stamp approach, voting in lockstep to support the status quo," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said, summing up the Democratic view of the GOP.

"It's wrong to affirm that 'stay the course' is a strategy for success," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said.

Looking ahead to 2008, all Republican senators considering a presidential run stood with the president and voted against redeploying U.S. troops.

Of the six Democrats eying a possible bid, four -- Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Joe Biden of Delaware, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Evan Bayh of Indiana -- voted to start withdrawing troops but they opposed setting a firm deadline under which all must be out of Iraq.

The other two Democrats, Kerry and Sen. Russ Feingold, led the effort to establish a hard date for the end of the U.S. military's combat mission.

Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have staged debates on Iraq for two weeks, with both sides maneuvering for the political upper hand in a midterm election year. Both the House and Senate soundly defeated withdrawal timetables last week.