see gw has lost lugar and brownback too, thank goodness that that gop stalwart mccain still backs him
"More Republicans Doubt Bush Iraq Policy
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Jan 24, 3:06 AM (ET)
By ANNE FLAHERTY
(AP) Senators, from left, John Warner, R-Va., Norm Coleman, R-Minn., Susan Collins, R-Maine and Ben...
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WASHINGTON (AP) - One by one, even the most senior Republicans in the Senate are expressing doubts that the administration's new war policy in Iraq will work.
"I am not confident that President Bush's plan will succeed," Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said in advance of a vote Wednesday on a resolution that opposes the president's decision to send more troops into Iraq.
Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, planned to reject the resolution - but not before registering his own concerns. He suggested stepped-up oversight, including seeking assurances from the administration that it is planning for the possibility of failure.
"I say to my colleagues that we are selling our powers short with this resolution," he said in prepared remarks.
(AP) Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, left, talks with Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. James Webb,...
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At least eight other Republican senators say they now back legislative proposals condemning Bush's decision to boost U.S. military strength in Iraq by 21,500 troops.
The growing list - which includes Sens. Gordon Smith, George Voinovich and Sam Brownback - has emboldened Democrats, who are pushing for a vote in the full Senate by next week to rebuke the president's Iraq policy.
In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, Bush urged skeptical members of Congress to give the plan a chance to work.
Many lawmakers remained reluctant.
"I wonder whether the clock has already run out," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. She said she was worried that U.S. troops in Iraq are already perceived "not as liberators but as occupiers."
(AP) Lt. Gen. David Petraeus testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2007, before...
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The nonbinding resolution being voted on Wednesday by the Foreign Relations Committee was drafted by the panel's chairman, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., along with Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Carl Levin, D-Mich.
The resolution declares that increasing U.S. troop strength in Iraq is not in the national interest. The resolution was expected to pass, with each of the committee's 11 Democrats voting for it, alongside Hagel.
GOP defections for Bush's Iraq policy spell trouble for an administration that has come to rely on congressional Republicans to champion its agenda. While many Bush loyalists remain, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., other lawmakers say the president cannot continue down a path the public does not support.
White House officials "realize you can't conduct a war with one party for it and one against it, and we're getting in that type of position," said Brownback, R-Kan. "And that is not a durable position."
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., initially reluctant to sign on to the Biden-Hagel resolution because he deemed it too partisan, said he would try to amend the language to broaden its appeal. Sens. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., - two presidential hopefuls - planned to weigh in with proposals that would toughen the measure.
(AP) Lt. Gen. David Petraeus testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2007, before...
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Collins, along with Smith, R-Ore., and Coleman, R-Minn., are co-sponsoring a resolution drafted by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., that states Senate opposition to the president's plan to send 21,500 troops but leaves open the possibility of Bush sending in a much smaller number of troops, particularly to the western Anbar province.
On Tuesday, Brownback and Voinovich, R-Ohio, said they too were inclined to vote in favor of Warner's measure.
As a member of the panel, Coleman is expected to offer two amendments to bring it closer to Warner's resolution.
"He feels it important to distinguish between troop increases in Baghdad where the conflict is largely sectarian, as opposed to Anbar where we are engaged in a battle against al-Qaida and terrorists forces," spokesman LeRoy Coleman said.
Warner, a prominent Republican and former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, cast his measure as a milder alternative to the one backed by Democrats.
As lawmakers considered their next steps, the Army general tapped to implement Bush's plan told a Senate panel Tuesday that more troops are necessary and he could not do his job without them.
"We face a determined, adaptable, barbaric enemy," Lt. Gen. David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "He will try to wait us out. In fact, any such endeavor is a test of wills, and there are no guarantees." |
