Senate rejects Iraq withdrawal plans

WASHINGTON -- The Senate yesterday overwhelmingly rejected Senator John F. Kerry's proposal to withdraw US troops from Iraq within a year, closing out an intense debate that both Democrats and Republicans used to hone their election-year messages on the war.

Only 12 Democrats voted for the proposal by Kerry, and it was defeated, 86 to 13. Senator James M. Jeffords, independent of Vermont, also voted yes for the bill, which tied troop redeployments to a specific timeline.

But Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, called the support for his amendment ``terrific," pointing out that the bill drew more than twice as many votes as a slightly different version of his proposal introduced last week.

``Our numbers are growing, and our ability to apply constant pressure to change course is stronger than it was just a week ago," Kerry said after the vote. ``Our troops have done their part. It's time for the politicians in Iraq and the United States to do their job."

Nevertheless, nearly all of the Senate's 44 Democrats voted for a less sweeping, nonbinding amendment that would have called on President Bush to begin withdrawing troops by the end of 2006 and to make ``phased redeployments" out of Iraq thereafter. That measure was defeated, 60 to 39, with Senator Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island the only Republican to join the Democrats and Jeffords to vote for the resolution.

Republicans celebrated the defeat of the bills, calling them bad policies that were rejected in favor of strong support for Bush and the war in Iraq.

``Though Democrats proposed multiple and confusing strategies for withdrawal, it's clear that the Senate has rejected their plans for surrender and cut and run," said the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican.

Vice President Dick Cheney was even sharper. In a CNN interview, he said the Democrats' push to withdraw troops from Iraq ``validates the terrorist strategy."

``There's no way [terrorists] can defeat us militarily," Cheney said. ``But their whole strategy -- if you look at what [Osama] bin Laden has been saying for 10 years -- is they believe they can, in fact, force us to quit, that ultimately we'll get tired of the fight, that we don't have the stomach for a long, tough battle, and that we'll pack it in and go home."

Yet Democrats, who have long been criticized as lacking a coherent message on Iraq, said the votes demonstrated broad party consensus for a new path in the war -- and they lambasted Republicans as blindly following the president. Shortly after the votes, a group of Senate Democrats stood in front of a blank poster labeled, ``The Republican Plan on Iraq."

``We came together to support a policy that makes sense," said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who helped craft the proposal calling for gradual withdrawals. ``We've heard [from Republicans] a lot of slogans, we've heard a lot of attacks on political bases, but essentially what they did was provide cover for the White House."

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, added, ``There may be differences among Democrats, but that's a much better place to be than where Republicans are: united behind the president in a failed policy."

The votes marked the end to two weeks in Congress that included the most substantive debate over the war in Iraq since October 2002, when the House and Senate granted Bush the authority to use force against Saddam Hussein. Last week, the House easily passed a resolution backing the president and the mission in Iraq.

But in the Senate, Republican leaders chose not to counter the Democrats' proposals with a plan of their own. They preferred to keep the focus on Democratic divisions, sending a message of their own by soundly defeating both bills.

``It's interesting to watch the Democrats debate among themselves as to whether they want to cut and run, cut and jog, [or] pick a dartboard date" for troop withdrawal, said the Senate majority whip, Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican. ``We've enjoyed watching them have this debate."

Kerry's decision to move forward with his bill upset some of his fellow Democrats. Party leaders wanted to offer a single amendment most Democratic senators could vote for, a way to show a unified front on the issue.

But Kerry -- whose muddled position on the war hurt him during his 2004 run for president -- insisted that his amendment be brought to a vote as a way to pressure Bush to change his policies.

``Ending the Bush administration's disastrous approach to this war isn't about counting votes," Kerry wrote yesterday in a fund-raising appeal to his e-mail list of supporters. ``It's about doing what's right."

The Senate debate was being closely watched for its impact on 2006 Senate races and the 2008 presidential field, and the fallout was swift for some. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who opposed both of his party's amendments, gave fresh campaign fodder to his Democratic primary challenger, Ned Lamont, who has attacked Lieberman's stay-the-course position on the war.

Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who voted for both Democratic proposals yesterday, immediately launched a television advertisement accusing his Republican opponent, Tom Kean Jr., of supporting ``George Bush's war." The National Republican Senatorial Committee fired back, saying Menendez belongs with the ``ultra-liberals" of his party alongside Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.

Chafee's opponent in the Rhode Island Republican primary, Stephen Laffey, criticized Chafee's vote with the Democrats.

``We have a war on terror to win, and it is not appropriate to put a timetable on it," Laffey said in a statement.