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Democratic
Retreat In Iraq?
From NBC's Ken Strickland and Mike Viqueira
09/07/07 "NBC" -- - It's clear now that Democratic
leaders on both sides of the Capitol are moving towards
dropping their insistence on a end date deadline for
completing troop withdrawal from Iraq.
Senate leaders are likely to move a defense measure on the
week of the 17th that essentially calls for a withdrawal to
begin later this year, but drops language that would require
completion by April 30, 2008. "We are not backing off
anything," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters
today, while adding in the next breath that "we need 60
votes" -- a threshold that they have been repeatedly unable
to meet this year on war votes. "There is nothing off the
table on Iraq," he said.
Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi is signaling that she, too, will
allow votes on a similar measure in the House by the end of
the month, as well as a measure that would require the Bush
Administration to come forward with a redeployment plan
within 60 days, according to a House leadership source.
It wasn't supposed to work out this way. Throughout the
spring Democrats had talked of how they were hammering away
at Republican resistance on deadline legislation, speaking
of the "arc" that votes had progressively taken towards the
Democratic position. September was to be a watershed moment
for congressional action on the war, with the expectation
that Republicans were going to start bucking the White
House. The strategy was to change Republican votes, not to
change the underlying legislation.
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