WASHINGTON — After weeks of suggesting Democrats would temper their approach to Iraq legislation in a bid to attract more Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared abruptly Tuesday that he had no plans to do so.
The Democratic leader said he will call for a vote this month on several anti-war proposals, including one by Sen. Carl Levin that would insist President Bush end U.S. combat next summer. The proposals would be mandatory and not leave Bush wiggle room, said Reid, D-Nev.
“There (are) no goals. It’s all definite timelines,” he told reporters of the planned legislation.
Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Monday night he would have agreed to turn the summer deadline into a nonbinding goal if doing so meant attracting enough votes to pass. Several Republicans have said they are uneasy about Bush’s war strategy but do not like the idea of setting a firm timetable on troop withdrawals.
Reid’s hardline stance reflects a calculation by Democrats that Levin’s proposal probably would have failed either way. Democrats hold a thin majority in the Senate and similar legislation has repeatedly fallen short of the 60 votes needed to break a GOP filibuster.
When asked why Democrats won’t soften the deadline, the majority leader said he doesn’t have confidence Republicans are willing to challenge Bush on the war.
“I think they’ve decided definitely they want this to be the Senate Republicans’ war, not just Bush’s. They’re jealous,” he said with a smile.
Meanwhile, a poll released Tuesday show that Army Gen. David Petraeus’ report to Congress and Bush’s nationally televised address had little effect on Americans’ distaste for the Iraq war and their desire to withdraw U.S. troops.
Fifty-four percent still favor bringing the troops home as soon as possible, a measurement that has not changed in months, according to a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. And despite slight improvements in peoples’ views of military progress, more said the U.S. will likely fail in Iraq than succeed by 47 percent to 42 percent, about the same margin as in July.
Nearly half, or 49 percent, said Bush should remove more troops than he announced he would last week, when he said he would withdraw some forces but leave at least 130,000 in Iraq at least until next summer. Thirty-eight percent said Bush’s plan goes far enough.
Overall, two out of three said their views on the war had not been changed by presentations last week by Bush and Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
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