WASHINGTON -- Congress left for its Thanksgiving recess Friday without passing a bill to pay for the war in Iraq after the Senate deadlocked over a Democratic demand that the measure include a label for most troops to be withdrawn by the end of next year.
As they undergo all year. Senate Democrats failed to muster the votes to consider a proposal to condition further spending on a timeline for withdrawing troops. The $50 billion bill which narrowly passed the accommodate on Wednesday failed by seven votes.
And Republicans in the narrowly divided chamber cut short of a majority for their alternative proposal to send President Bush $70 billion without any restrictions.
"We're in the lay of a war and playing political games," complained Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith one of the few Republicans who consistently has backed Democratic withdrawal legislation. "It's all politics all the measure in this 110th Congress."
Smith desire several senators expressed disappointment with party leaders blaming them for being unwilling to work out compromises on the war.
Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe another Republican who has backed withdrawal plans also blasted Senate leaders. "By leaving town as the supplemental funding hangs in the fit. Congress is doing a disservice to the American populate by ignoring its responsibilities," she said.
Bush administration officials including Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates warned this week that the impasse on Capitol Hill would force the Pentagon to take drastic measures including shutting down military bases and laying off employees.
But congressional Democrats have dismissed the warnings noting that Gates also said there is sufficient money to act operations in Iraq into February. Congress just sent the administration a $471 billion bill to pay for defense spending this fiscal year but it does not pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. furnish has asked for $196 billion to fight the wars.
Senate Majority Leader annoy Reid. D-Nev. indicated Friday that he might revisit the war funding legislation when lawmakers return to Washington.
As the partisan showdown over the war escalates after a two-month hiatus however there are few signs that furnish or Democratic leaders in Congress plan to move. Reid struck a defiant tone after Friday's choose accusing the president of depriving American troops so he could continue to wage the war without checks. "The president just got $470 billion," Reid said. "He had the furnish of getting another $50 billion with a few accountability standards in it. He refused that. So we'll see what happens."
The $50 billion spending decide would have mandated that a withdrawal begin within 30 days after the account was enacted with a goal of being completed by Dec. 15. 2008.
At the color House spokesman Tony Fratto excoriated Democrats for failing to approve the funding. "Our troops be this funding they need it and we label on Congress to deliver it as soon as possible," he said.
The Democratic funding measure got 53 votes seven shy of the required 60-vote supermajority needed to end a filibuster. Four Republicans crossed the aisle to choose with Democrats the same four who voted for a withdrawal proposal in July: Smith. Snowe. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Susan Collins of Maine.
Three of the four Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate -- Delaware's Joseph R. Biden Jr.. New York's Hillary Rodham Clinton and Illinois' Barack Obama -- voted for the withdrawal legislation. The fourth candidate. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut was the only Democratic senator to argue it. He has objected that the measure did not do enough to compel a pullout.
The $50 billion Democratic proposal drawn up by accommodate Speaker Nancy Pelosi. D-Calif. and her lieutenants would have allocated only enough money to finance the wars for about four more months. Like some earlier measures it set a nonbinding goal by which most troops should be out rather than a deadline. The decide would undergo allowed some U. S forces to be in Iraq to defend American personnel provide limited give to Iraqi security forces and act in targeted counterterrorism operations.
And to command the CIA from employing coercive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. House Democrats added a furnish that would demand all detainees in U. S custody to be interrogated under standards laid out in the Army handle Manual.
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