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Post-Veto, Dems Work on New Plan for Iraq

I'll say this: I admire the Democrats' effort. They aren't always super organized, and they aren't always as ballsy as I'd like, but they've decided they're going to end this war using any politically reasonable means to do so, and they keep plugging away. The spineless Democrat stereotype from a few years back -- when people were saying there was effectively no opposition party in this country -- is dead.

Now that the president has vetoed the Democrats' timeline for withdrawal, here's what the Dem leadership has in the works:

The plan would split the now vetoed supplemental spending bill into two bills, one that would provide two months of funding for the Iraq War and another that would fund the agricultural programs contained in the earlier bill, aides said.

In addition to the two months of Iraq funding, the bill would provide a $10 billion cushion to allow the military flexibility. It would also require the president to report back to Congress by July 13 on the extent to which the Iraqi government had met certain benchmarks for progress.

The plan would "fence off" additional combat funds until Congress voted to "unfence" them. Such a vote would be held on July 24. A vote of the FY08 defense appropriations bill would be delayed until September, one aide said.

I'm okay with this. I know we rally against the surge pretty frequently here at MoJoBlog, myself included, but I'm willing to give David Petraeus two more months to see what progress he can make.

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 05/04/07 at 12:07 PM | Comments (2) | Email | Print

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