The Nation - Changes to war strategy fail in Senate - Republicans again head off a Democratic challenge to Bush's policy that sought more rest time for troops.
WASHINGTON — For the eighth time this year, Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a Democratic move to challenge U.S. policy in Iraq, turning aside a plan to give troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan more rest between deployments.
The vote marked another victory for the Bush administration, which had lobbied hard against the proposal by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and continued to command the allegiance of congressional Republicans despite persistent public unhappiness with the war.
And it punctuated Democrats' struggles to persuade GOP lawmakers to back even moderate legislation designed to limit the administration's conduct of the war.
Though Senate Democrats are working on other measures challenging the White House -- among them, a proposal to scale back the mission of U.S. forces in Iraq -- the defeat of the Webb measure for the second time in two months clouded the prospects for any meaningful legislation opposing the war.
On Wednesday, Democrats fell four votes short of the 60-vote supermajority needed to prevent a filibuster of Webb's proposed amendment to the defense authorization bill.
Just six Republicans joined 49 Democrats and one independent in voting for the Webb amendment, which also narrowly failed to overcome a filibuster in July when seven GOP lawmakers voted for it. Forty-three Republicans and one independent voted against the proposal Wednesday.
Frustrated Senate Democrats accused Republicans of abdicating their constitutional responsibility to look out for the well-being of the military.
"In blocking this bipartisan bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated that they are more committed to protecting the president than protecting our troops," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement after the vote.
But Republican lawmakers, many of whom were backing a nonbinding alternative, rallied against Webb's proposal as a "backdoor" attempt to force a precipitous pullout, and secured more "no" votes than they did in July.
"Every one of us care about the men and women who are serving in the military," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading champion of the current U.S. military strategy in Iraq, who said the measure would "emasculate this surge" just as it was showing signs of success.
"Let us win," McCain said.
Senate Republicans also blocked a proposal to grant terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere habeas corpus rights, which would have allowed them to challenge their incarcerations in federal courts.
