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Senate Republicans block Iraq resolution

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., center, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., hold a press conference Monday after Republican senators blocked Senate debate on the Iraq buildup resolution. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
David Espo Associated Press
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., center, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., hold a press conference Monday after Republican senators blocked Senate debate on the Iraq buildup resolution. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

WASHINGTON – Republicans blocked a full-fledged Senate debate over Iraq on Monday, but Democrats vowed they would eventually find a way to force President Bush to change course in a war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops.

“We must heed the results of the November elections and the wishes of the American people,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Reid, D-Nev., spoke moments before a vote that sidetracked a nonbinding measure expressing disagreement with Bush’s plan to deploy an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq. The 49-47 vote was 11 short of the 60 needed to go ahead with debate and left the fate of the measure uncertain.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, described the test vote as merely a “bump in the road” that could possibly be overcome within hours. GOP lawmakers “welcome the debate and are happy to have it,” he said, adding they were insisting on equal treatment for an alternative measure expected to draw strong support.

The proposal, by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., says Congress should neither cut nor eliminate funding for troops in the field. That measure takes no position on the war or the president’s decision to deploy additional forces.

Democrats sought passage of a measure, supported by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., that is critical of the administration’s new Iraq policy. It was the first time Democrats had scheduled a sustained debate on the war since they won control over Congress in last fall’s midterm elections.

“The American people do not support escalation. Last November, voters made it clear they want a change of course, not more of the same,” said Reid. “The president must hear from Congress, so he knows he stands in the wrong place, alone.”

Sen. Dick Durbin, of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, echoed Reid. “If the Republicans want to stand by their president and his policy, they shouldn’t run from this debate. If they believe we should send thousands of our young soldiers into the maws of this wretched civil war, they should at least have the courage to stand and defend their position,” he said.

But Gregg differed with them. “We should not take action once soldiers have been sent into the field and are putting their lives at risk,” he said. “We should not be saying to them through a resolution, which is nonbinding, that we don’t think the mission you’re on makes sense and we don’t want you to do it.”

Republican Sens. Susan Collins, of Maine, and Norm Coleman, of Minnesota, sided with Democrats on the vote. Reid switched sides at the end, a step that allows him to call for a new roll call at his discretion.

Democrats hoped to gain enough Republican votes to pass the measure expressing disagreement with Bush’s decision, and to send the commander in chief an extraordinary wartime rebuke on a bipartisan vote.

It was an outcome that the White House and Senate Republican leadership hoped to avoid. They concentrated on a relatively small number of swing votes, many of them belonging to GOP senators expected to be on the ballot in 2008.