The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is voting on amendments to the Biden-Hagel non-binding resolution that expresses the sense of the Senate against escalating increasing the troop levels in Iraq. The most important amendment has been introduced by Sen. Dodd, who is running for President. Dodd’s amendment would cap the number of troops in Iraq at 130,000. It would not cut off funding. The amendment failed. Biden voted against all amendments, even some he agreed with, in an effort to get a ‘clean bill’. But several other Democrats voted against Dodd’s amendment, including all our new members. Those voting for it included: Dodd, Kerry, Feingold, Obama, Menendez, and Boxer. Bill Nelson, Ben Cardin, Bob Casey Jr., and Jim Webb voted against it.
All amendments to the non-binding resolution failed, but the resolution itself passed by a vote of 12-9. In other words, no Republican other than Hagel voted for it.
On Hagel’s recommendation, the word ‘escalating’ was changed to ‘increasing’. This may signal that some Republican Senators made that a condition of supporting the vote on the Senate floor.
The bill will compete with a similar resolution from John Warner, Susan Collins, and Ben Nelson. As Ben Nelson is explaining on MSNBC right now, the Foreign Relations bill failed to gain any bipartisan support. They are hoping to work something out that can gather more support.
The Warner-Nelson bill would distinguish between troop increases for Anbar Province and for Baghdad.
There appears to be support from approximately a dozen Republicans for one or the other of these resolutions. If that is the case then Mitch McConnell will have no success filibustering.
This is a pretty stunning response to the President a mere day after his State of the Union address.
One last note: John Kerry has announced that he will not seek the Democratic nomination in 2008.
