A Turning Point on Iraq

A Turning Point on Iraq

November 16, 2005

Yesterday, the Senate delivered a blow to the White House and its current Iraq strategy. Seventy-nine Senators – including some of the President's closest allies – voted for a resolution requiring President Bush "to explain to Congress and the American people its strategy for the successful completion of the mission in Iraq." The resolution called for a significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty in 2006. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) commented that "historians will look back on this day and say this was a turning point." The question is whether the Bush administration will tell the American people what its plan for success in Iraq is.

• The Senate moved the Iraq debate forward with its vote yesterday. The Senate voted on two resolutions yesterday; the amendment calling for the inclusion of a "timetable for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq” failed. But both amendments had the same language that called for "a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" and the creation of "conditions for the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq." This vote clearly signals the Senate’s disapproval of the administration’s “stay the course” attitude in Iraq and calls on the White House to set some clear benchmarks for success.
  
  
• Instead of putting forward a plan, the administration is attacking critics. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld continued the administration attack on its war critics yesterday. This time he included attacks on members of the previous administration. Rumsfeld's attack is part of an orchestrated White House effort to "stem sagging public support resulting from a growing impression that the administration misled the public in the months before going to war." Misleading statements from the President and his administration got them into this current situation, and they are not going to get them out.
  
  
• Progressives have a better way for Iraq. There are alternatives out there for the administration to consider. On CNN last night, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said, “I think we ought to begin to redeploy, to downsize, to move out our troops at the beginning of the next year." Feinstein has embraced the principles of American Progress's strategy, Strategic Redeployment, which calls for a gradual drawdown and redeployment of troops throughout 2006, with all the troops back home by the end of 2007.