Beachmom, an update for your diary

[TayTay]

Did you catch that Sen. Kerry is circulating an amendment in the Senate for a re-authorization for the war?

From the transcript

What I am going to circulate and ask colleagues to support at the appropriate time -- I had a resolution last year to set a date. The date I sought is actually similar the one put forth by the Iraq Study Group. It also happens to coincide with what the president himself said. He thought we could begin having the troops out and the authority transferred to the Iraqis. So there's no arbitrariness to it.

Now, I know my colleagues' discomfort with us setting a date, so I changed that. I'm still for it, but I want to try to see if we can get something all together. And I will circulate and ask colleagues to support a combined reauthorization.

And the reason for the reauthorization is very simple, folks. We gave the president the authorization for use of military force in Iraq, pursuant to Public Law 107, specifically, number one, to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.

That was specifically WMD and threat with respect to terror.

Two, to enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

KERRY: Well, we have a new Iraq, an entirely new government, an entirely new situation. What I believe we ought to do is take our responsibilities seriously with respect to the authorization of our troops to go to war.

And that means reauthorize it in some form, whatever you think is appropriate. What I think is appropriate is what the Iraq Study Group suggested and what, ultimately, the president said can happen if we transfer authority and the Iraqis assume it.

So I would say that what we ought to do, rather than us being specific about the timetable, rather than sitting here and suffering the accusations for being arbitrary, rather than us getting into a contest with the president over his authority, we make the authorization contingent on how those troops are going to be used: to represent America's interests in the region; to represent our security interests with respect to Iran; to represent our interests with respect to chasing Al Qaida; to represent our interests with respect to protecting our facilities and forces as they come out.

But we also require the president to negotiate that timetable, together with the government of Iraq. So we require the president; he negotiates; we put a time frame on the period within which he must negotiate it; and we represent our clear interests in the region with respect to terror, reconstruction and what the deployment of our forces would be.

This goes way beyond the withdrawal amendment. This is really, really good stuff.

[beachmom]

1. Hmmm .... it's not clear enough to me here what precisely he's

talking about. Also, the diary is about ready to drop off the front page. But when this gets fleshed out some more, you're right -- this will be an "action" that the blogosphere needs to take, by calling senators.

So it's:

a reauthorization
make the president negotiate a timetable with the Iraqi government


Is that pretty much what he's saying here?

Edit: actually it was about to drop off the page then moved up one spot. DailyKos is strange.

Still, I feel like I want to stick to the theme of Iran, Kerry's anguish about the Iraq War, and save specific amendments for another diary.

[TayTay]

2. It is not as clear as it should be yet, true

But it is a move to ask Congress to re-authorize (or NOT) the war.

Kerry states that the original resolution gave WMD and regime change as the reasons for the authority that Congress gave. Ahm, those things are done, for better or worse.

So, we need a re-authorization of the war. (See what your Senator John Warner said last fall when he remarked in an Armed Services Hearing that Congress might just have to revisit the original IWR and do it again, or not.)

Kerry is going to call them out on this. Brave man.

[wisteria]

3. I have heard something on this before. The situation has changed so the original

resolution is irrelevant now. We need a resolution that addresses the situation as it is now.
Sounds like a good way around this mess and Bush's authority.