Moderates’ Hope for Compromise on Iraq Fading as Reid Takes Hard Line
By John M. Donnelly, CQ Staff
A Democratic proposal to withdraw most U.S. troops from Iraq by next year was not expected to overcome Republican opposition in the Senate on Friday.
But despite the anticipated defeat of the measure and earlier failures to change President Bush’s Iraq policy, the Senate’s Democratic leaders dismissed the idea of considering compromise legislation, leaving the chamber at an impasse over the war.
After the defeat on Thursday of an amendment to the defense authorization bill that also would have drawn down most troops from Iraq by next year, the leaders declared they would not give ground on their demands for a fixed withdrawal date merely to pass what they said would be toothless war legislation with the support of some Republican moderates.
“Compromise,” Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, does not mean Democrats will “give up our principles. Our principle is that we need to change the course of the war in Iraq, not have an amendment that we say could pass (with) bipartisan (support).”
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“We are not changing our strategy. We feel extremely comfortable with where we are,” Reid said.
“Now it’s Bush’s war and the Republican senators’ (war).”more...
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