Dems play politics with GWOT (again), pass useless measure
By a vote of 223-201 the House today passed a measure requiring combat troops to bug out of Iraq starting in no less than 120 days and to be completed by April 1, 2008. Perfect timing. The Dems can all get together and shout “April fool!” to the Iraqis who thought America would be able to stand strong against Al Qaeda and their allies.
There’s a couple of real problems with the bill, of course, and they’re intentional. The bill, HR 2956, allows for a residual force to “train Iraqis, protect U.S. assets and fight al-Qaida” according to the AP account. The trouble with all this is that those terms are hopelessly vague. What force level is required to protect U.S. assets? And how (once again) will our forces know that the people shooting at them are Al Qaeda or not?
They’ve been told by the President that he’ll veto this if it lands on his desk – not at all a certainty since the Senate appears to have the votes needed to keep cloture on the measure from passing – but the House went ahead with it anyway. They don’t care if it’s actually effective leadership, they just want to use it as a club to beat up the White House. Pathetic.
