Republicans Likely To Block Senate Rebuke Of Bush Troop Plan

[Dracos]

Determined to check President Bush, Democratic critics of the Iraq war hope a strong House vote critical of the administration's troop buildup will pay dividends in the Senate.

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Senate Republicans, however, insisted on an alternative that would reject any reduction in money for the troops, making it unlikely that Democrats would prevail in a test vote planned Saturday.

"Americans deserve to know whether their senator stands with the president and his plan to deepen our military commitment in Iraq, or with the overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose this escalation," Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) said Friday.

Ahead of the Senate session, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Baghdad to check on the new security crackdown in the capital.

"If in fact militias decide to stand down and stop killing innocent Iraqis ... that can't be a bad thing," Rice told reporters traveling with her. "But how the Iraqis use the breathing space that that might provide is what's really important."

The House on Friday passed, by a 246-182 vote, a measure stating opposition to Bush's decision to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. The nonbinding resolution was a symbolic rebuke of a wartime president who has lost favor with the public.

Sixty-three percent of people surveyed oppose Bush's decision to send more troops, although support for the president's plan has risen in the past few weeks from 26 percent to 35 percent, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Senate Democrats tried earlier in February to push their own resolution, but Republicans succeeded in blocking debate. Republicans wanted senators to be able to vote on a proposal by Sen. Judd Gregg (news, bio, voting record), R-N.H., that would promise not to cut off funds for troops in combat.

"That remains a demand of Senate Republicans," said Republican leader Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), R-Ky. "We think it's fundamentally fair and totally relevant to the issue at hand."

Several Republican senators wary of the president's Iraq plans were expected to side with Democrats, saying they were frustrated that Senate leaders could not agree on the ground rules for such an important debate.

Still, Democrats were not expected to get the 60 votes needed to move ahead. But Reid, D-Nev., said the vote would help determine where senators stood.

A no vote, he said, is a vote "to give the president a green light to escalate the war."

In the House, supporters of the nonbinding measure included 229 Democrats and 17 Republicans. Fewer GOP lawmakers defected than Democrats had hoped and the White House and its allies had feared. Two Democrats — Reps. Gene Taylor (news, bio, voting record), D-Miss., and Jim Marshall (news, bio, voting record), D-Ga. — joined the 180 Republicans in opposition.

Bush has said passage of the measure will not deter him from proceeding with the deployment of an additional 21,500 troops, designed primarily to quell sectarian violence in heavily populated Baghdad.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070217/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq;_ylt=Ah0HbCCQJTcdY9N5FP3HC36yFz4D

[acmavm]

1. I hope their ignorant, stubborn, partisan shenanigans show the American

people that it's all self-serving crap, and nothing more, that they can expect from the republican party.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Most of us are too stupid to understand cloture.

They won't get it, and it won't be explained to them in terms of obstruction by the Republicans but instead as failure by the Democrats.

[PresidentObama]

3. They wonder why they lost their majority?

Hey Republicans, think fast the voters are watching!!

:banghead: