Pgh Post Gazette-Act on Iraq: The Senate resolution is a nonbinding nonstarter

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07027/757219-192.stm

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee sharply rejected President Bush's escalation of the Iraq war the day after he appealed for it in his State of the Union address.

The vote was 12-9 for the nonbinding resolution and broke mostly along party lines, with Democrats in the majority. While other Republicans used the occasion to speak out against the Bush plan, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a co-sponsor, was the only member of the president's party on the committee to vote for the measure. The resolution will go to the floor next week for a vote by the full Senate, which is likely to pass it, perhaps with modifications proposed by Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va.

The resolution is intended to make clear to Mr. Bush that a majority of the Senate does not support his decision to send 21,500 more American troops to join the 140,000 already in Iraq. The objective of U.S. troops is to prevent the Iraqis from continuing the bloody struggle between Sunnis and Shiites for control of the country, particularly in the capital, Baghdad. The fighting continues, with high casualties among Americans and Iraqis. Newly trained Iraqi forces, assigned to pick up the job of bringing the conflict under control, have so far pretty much stayed out of it, leaving it to the Americans to do the heavy lifting.

The Senate resolution and discussion of it made it clear that the committee considers the situation in Iraq not worthy of pouring more American candidates into it to be maimed and killed.

The measure is a cop-out, however, on the part of Senate members. Mr. Bush, and most recently Vice President Dick Cheney, have made it clear that they intend to ignore the resolution and whatever else the Senate might do, and continue to feed the additional 21,500 troops into the Iraq meat-grinder at their will. If the Senate really wanted to stop Mr. Bush from doing that, it would need to take concrete action.