Pressure growing to plan Iraq exit

[Glenda]

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/06/16/pressure_growing_to_plan_iraq_exit/

Pressure growing to plan Iraq exit
Bipartisan group pushes resolution
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | June 16, 2005

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Today, a small, bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by a Republican who supported the war (Representative Walter Jones Jr., a North Carolina Republican), plans to introduce a resolution calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq beginning in October 2006. The effort follows a bid by Democrats to require the Bush administration to draw up, within 30 days, an exit plan. The Democrats' bill was swept aside in committee and is unlikely to reach the House floor for a vote.

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With polls indicating that public support for the war has dwindled, more lawmakers who supported the use of force in Iraq are openly voicing their concerns about the lack of a clear, publicly stated plan to set limits on the US presence there. Last week, the House International Relations Committee voted 32-9 to call on Bush to develop a strategy to leave Iraq. The White House rejects the idea, believing such a policy would only encourage the Iraqi insurgency.

The political maneuvers are being made amid continuing violence in Iraq and the recent controversy over a British government memo that called into question the Bush administration's motives for going to war. Some prominent Republicans seem worried that if Republicans vote for the bipartisan bill in substantial numbers -- even if, in the end, the bill is defeated -- it would be embarrassing for the administration and would undermine Bush's authority.

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Meanwhile, in the Senate, Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, is signing up cosponsors for a resolution demanding that Bush produce a timetable for reaching his goals in Iraq -- and for withdrawing troops thereafter. Feingold quickly received the support of Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California

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''The Republican leadership is biting their fingernails off over this," (Massachusetts Representative James P.) McGovern said. ''This Congress has been negligent with regard to its duty on Iraq. We didn't ask the right questions before the war. Now, no one is being held accountable."

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''Nobody would have voted for this resolution" if they had known then what they do now, (Shelley Berkley, a Nevada Democrat) said. ''There's a growing recognition that things have gone terribly wrong in Iraq, and the acknowledgement that the administration does not have a handle on the future of Iraq, or of America's role in Iraq."


(*** edited to put in people's names in parentheses)