The Democrats passed the Iraq War Supplemental funding bill, but is that the end of the story until September? Not exactly. There are still a few battles to fight this summer. Bob Geiger reports on a Pelosi conference call last night.
“I am determined to end this war — it is my top priority,” she said firmly. “But I also, in order to end this war, have to take the heat when it doesn’t go well. Because this is a strategy that is more than one event, that’s for sure.”
“We are preparing legislation and will announce it either today or tomorrow, depending on the House schedule, that has our original language about the timelines, the timetables. That is to say no goal, but a definite date of departure. Within 120 days the Secretary of Defense must begin a redeployment of the troops out of Iraq to be completed no later than April 1, 2008. Not a goal — a timeline.”
“It makes it harder every time for the Republicans to vote in favor of this war,” she said in pledging to stay in the Republicans’ faces on the Iraq occupation.
The vile Politico has more.
[Sen. Harry] Reid has already publicly declared that Senate Democrats will offer four Iraq-related amendments to the upcoming 2008 Defense authorization bill, including a proposal by Reid and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) to set a firm timetable to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by next spring.
Pelosi is planning to announce that the House will also vote on a bill setting a new withdrawal timetable of April 1, 2008, although the details of the proposal were still up in the air at press time, according to Democratic sources. The House will consider this proposal as a freestanding bill, said the sources.
Pelosi is also planning to force a vote on a proposal by Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to repeal the 2002 use-of-force resolution for Iraq. This “deauthorization” proposal may be offered as an amendment to the 2008 Defense spending bill, which the House is scheduled to take up following the week-long July 4th recess.
In addition, House Democrats will push proposals to prohibit the creation of permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, as well as a “readiness” initiative similar to that authored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.). The Webb proposal would limit deployments of U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq by requiring the Pentagon to keep military units from being sent back to Iraq until they have been stateside as long as they were in the combat zone.
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the powerful Defense subcommittee on the House Appropriations Committee and a leader of the anti-war movement, is planning to offer his own new measures as part of the Defense spending bill.
Each one of these votes will put Republicans on the record, again, as supporting an endless commitment to Iraq. The object is to put the maximum amount of hurt on Republicans and to keep probing and testing their resolve and their self-destructive tendencies.
On the subject of impeachment, we can see that it isn’t exactly ‘off the table’ but it requires a record. Again, from Bob Geiger:
Asked by writer Dave Johnson of Seeing The Forest about the blatant lawlessness of the Bush administration and their apparent belief that they’re above the rule of law, Pelosi reinforced the difference a Democratic Congress has made on executive-branch oversight and said that we only see part of just how bad the Bush White House really is.
“The American people really don’t even know the half of it,” said Pelosi in discussing what further oversight efforts might ultimately uncover. “In every aspect of the rule of law, and respect for the Constitution and checks and balances and how they conduct themselves, it’s impossible to exaggerate how bad they have been.”
“But we are trying to build the record and that’s what we have to do. They had been going for six and a half years with no oversight, just absolutely zero accountability. And when people talk about this Congress, they have to recognize that there’s a big distinction between this Congress and previous Congresses in terms of shedding the light of oversight and accountability on this administration. But with many of these things, you have to build a record so the public sees what it is.”
It is not only building a record, it is forcing a constitutional showdown by subpoenaing testimony and documents from the White House and Office of the Vice-President that they cannot turn over without exposing the depth of their depravity.
These strategies have not paid off so far, but the president continues to weaken and Republican unity is splintering at a quickening pace.
