Senate votes to support Iraq pullout deadline

The Senate narrowly endorsed the Democrats linkage of emergency spending for the Iraq war with a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq a year from now, voting down a Republican amendment that would have stripped that provision from the $122 emergency spending bill.

The vote was 50 to 48 to reject the amendment, introduced by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Like its counterpart bill in the House, the bill included $20 billion in special interest bribes domestic spending.

The bill requires U.S. combat troops to begin leaving Iraq within four months of enactment and sets a goal of completing their withdrawal by March 31, 2008.

Had Congress voted unequivically cut off funding for this war and not confirmed General Petraeus as the commander there after knowing what his strategy would be, that would be one thing. I might not agree with it, but I could respect it as an honest decision. And the congressmen who voted for it would bear the responsibility for that choice, for good or ill.

But to do it in this fashion, at this time, in a bill larded with special interest funding is more than simply wrong. It is an attempt by the Democrats to have it both ways at our troops' expense, to attempt to avoid any politicul onus for `not supporting the troops' while pleasing the Angry Left. It sends a message to the jihadis that all they need do is wait us out, and a message to our friends that we are not to be trusted to keep our commitments.

I'm just as fed up with the Bush Administration's mismanagement of this war as anyone could be. But leaving in this fashion is something that will haunt us and follow us home in years to come.