WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans who earlier this week helped block deliberations on a resolution opposing President Bush's new troop deployments in Iraq changed course yesterday and vowed to use every tactic at their disposal to ensure a full and open debate.
In a letter distributed last night to Senate leaders, John Warner of Virginia, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and five other GOP supporters of the resolution threatened to try to attach their measure to any bill sent to the floor in the coming weeks. Declaring that the war is the “most pressing issue of our time,” the senators wrote, “We will explore all of our options under the Senate procedures and practices to ensure a full and open debate on the Senate floor.”
The letter, sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wasn't more specific about the Republican senators' strategy for reviving the stalled debate over the war. But under the Senate's rules, individual members have wide latitude to slow the progress of legislation and to offer amendments, regardless of whether they have anything to do with the bill.
The letter began circulating last night after it became apparent that the Senate was deadlocked over the war resolution and Reid was prepared to move on to other matters. McConnell and many in his party have aggressively defended their decision to block the bipartisan resolution as an issue of fairness, because Democrats wouldn't agree to GOP procedural demands.
But some Republicans were uneasy about appearing to have stymied the debate. The letter appeared so suddenly that although it was addressed to Reid, the Democratic leader hadn't seen his copy before Warner read it on the Senate floor.
“Monday's procedural vote should not be interpreted as any lessening of our resolve to go forward advocating the concepts” of their resolution, the senators' letter stated. “The current stalemate is unacceptable to us and to the people of this country.”
House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, are trying to craft their own nonbinding expression of disapproval of Bush's decision to send an additional 21,500 troops to battle, and intend to devote three days next week to debating it.
Senior House Democrats predicted their measure would attract overwhelming Democratic support and possibly up to 30 GOP votes.
A top Pentagon leader weighed in yesterday on the war debate, and appeared to undercut the argument advanced by the White House and many Republican lawmakers that a congressional debate challenging the escalation would hurt troop morale.
“There's no doubt in my mind that the dialogue here in Washington strengthens our democracy. Period,” Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the House Armed Services Committee. He added that potential enemies may take some comfort from the rancor, but they “don't have a clue how democracy works.”
Congress is grappling with a series of nonbinding resolutions, each of which addresses Bush's deployment plan, even as public support for the war declines and conditions on the ground grow increasingly perilous. The debate has particularly vexed Republicans, who are reluctant to abandon Bush at a critical moment, but who also regard their defeat in the November election as a signal that voters want Congress to challenge White House war policy more aggressively.
