Tuesday, November 15, 2005

No Ideas of their own...

Cribbing a Plan from the Democrats
"WASHINGTON - The Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday easily defeated a Democratic effort to pressure President Bush to outline a timetable for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It then overwhelmingly endorsed a weaker statement of U.S. policy in Iraq.

By 58-40, senators rejected a Democratic plan that the minority party's leadership advanced in the wake of declining public support for a conflict that has claimed more than 2,000 U.S. lives and cost more than $200 billion. The non-binding measure called for Bush to outline a plan for gradually withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq."
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On a 79-19 vote, the Senate approved that GOP-sponsored proposal, which did not call for the president to put forth a withdrawal timetable.
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Republicans largely adopted the Democratic proposal as their own, but they omitted one paragraph calling for the president to offer a plan for a phased withdrawal of the roughly 160,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq. The administration has refused to set a timetable for withdrawal, saying insurgents simply would wait to strike until after U.S. forces departed.

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