House rejects timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq

U.S. Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) speaks to reporters in Washington, December 14, 2005. In a vote charged with election-year politics, the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a symbolic resolution that wrapped the Iraq conflict into the war on terrorism and rejected a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal. (Jim Young/Reuters)

This is from Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON - The House on Friday handily rejected a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq, culminating a fiercely partisan debate between Republicans and Democrats feeling the public's apprehension about war and the onrushing midterm campaign season.

In a 256-153 vote that mirrored the position taken by the Senate earlier, the GOP-led House approved a nonbinding resolution that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest.

Four months before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, House Republicans sought to force Republicans and Democrats alike to take a position on the conflict that began with the U.S. invasion that toppled
Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003.

Democrats denounced the debate and vote as a politically motivated charade, and most, including Pelosi, voted against the measure. They said that supporting it would have the effect of affirming Bush's "failed policy" in Iraq.

Balking carried a risk for Democrats, particularly when they see an opportunity to win back control of Congress from the GOP. Republicans likely will use Democratic "no" votes to claim that their opponents don't support U.S. troops.

A U.S. soldier walks past the scene of a car bomb attack in Baghdad, February 3, 2005. (Stringer/Reuters)

Four months before the midterm elections, and we get this Republican-created farce. That is all this was--election year politicking on the Republican's part to frame the debate between supporting the war means fighting terrorism, and opposing the war means surrendering to the terrorists. This whole fiasco was designed to capture sound-bites, on both sides, to be used in the next wave of negative campaign ads. This debate was created by the Republicans--and perhaps Karl Rove--to incite terrorism fears with the American public. Continuing with the story:

The House vote comes one day after the Senate soundly rejected a call to withdraw combat troops by year's end by shelving a proposal that would allow "only forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces" to remain in Iraq in 2007.

That vote was 93-6, but Democrats assailed the GOP maneuver that led to the vote as political gamesmanship and promised further debate next week on a proposal to start redeploying troops this year.

Congress erupted in debate on the Iraq war four months before midterm elections that will decide the control of both the House and Senate, and as
President Bush was trying to rebuild waning public support for the conflict.

The administration was so determined to get out its message that the
Pentagon distributed a highly unusual 74-page "debate prep book" filled with ready-made answers for criticism of the war, which began in March 2003.

But as the death toll and price tag of the conflict continue to rise, opinion polls show voters increasingly frustrated with the war and favoring Democrats to control Congress instead of the Republicans who now run the show.

I'm not sure how much longer the Republicans can milk this terrorism fears from the American public. The Republicans have over used this issue of terrorism fears--we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here in the U.S. It is getting rather stale. The American death toll in Iraq has just reached 2,500, and it is still climbing, while the number of Americans wounded in Iraq have climbed to 18,490. How much higher will these numbers go before we get away from all this politicking and start having a serious debate on what to do with Iraq? The longer this mess in Iraq continues on, the more political trouble the Republicans, and the Bush administration, will be getting into, since this war of choice was initiated by the PNAC neocons in the Republican Party and the Bush White House. So far, the Republicans, and the Bush administration have refused to define the U.S. mission and goals in Iraq. They have refused to provide any measurable goals to show U.S. progress in winning the war in Iraq, aside from some generic open-ended statements. And the Bush White House has refused to provide the American public with the complete accounting costs of the war--preferring instead to hide the costs in a continued series of emergency spending bills. This can not go on forever.