Democrats' Struggle to Change Course in Iraq Has Produced Much Debate, Little Action

Legislative Struggles

As the debate evolved from winter to spring, GOP unease with the president's policies was growing, but bridging the gap between Republicans and Democrats opposed to the war repeatedly proved impossible.

The Biden-Hagel resolution emerged from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 24 on a 12 to 9 vote, but that was as far as it would go. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) announced that Republicans would filibuster the measure. A Feb. 5 vote to overcome the GOP objections failed, and Reid made another attempt less than two weeks later, holding the Senate in session on a Saturday for a test of a new nonbinding resolution, this one co-authored by Sen. John W. Warner (Va.), a leading Republican foreign policy spokesman.

Though it too failed, Democrats were nonetheless emboldened by what they perceived as increasing Republican doubts about the direction of the war. They decided then to pursue binding legislation.

In the following weeks they weighed their legislative options. It was a public process, unfolding in committee rooms, floor pronouncements and news conferences. Reid and other party leaders believed that keeping the debate on the front page would increase pressure on Republicans to break with Bush. Reid told his staff to add Iraq remarks to all his floor speeches.

The template that emerged, conceived by Biden along with Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and others, called for removing the original war authorization Congress had given Bush in 2002 and replacing it with new authority for a far more limited mission. In a Feb. 15 meeting in Reid's office, the majority leader told Biden and Levin to go ahead: "You guys work this out."

But red-state Democrats considered "deauthorization" too heavy-handed, while liberals opposed "reauthorization" for a war they never supported.

So Democratic leaders dropped what Biden had called the "bookends" of the proposal -- the two authorization elements -- and left the provision that would redefine and limit the mission of U.S. troops. The authors also attached the March 31, 2008, goal for withdrawing combat troops that the Iraq Study Group had established in its December report.

"Frankly there are only a few options," explained Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), summing up the Democrats' dilemma. "Staying in, getting out, changing the mission. But everyone was recognizing the huge pressure that was building up" for the most drastic action possible.

On March 15, the Biden-Levin effort, offered officially by Reid, failed 50 to 48, with Republicans dismissing the March 31 goal as a "surrender date." Twelve days later, the Senate held a similar vote, and the Democratic tally rose by two, delivering a surprise victory but still far short of the 67 votes needed to override a certain veto.

Meanwhile, along the campaign trail, a mini-drama was unfolding between Clinton and Obama.

In January, they offered competing Iraq plans, and their skirmishes over the war spilled into deliberations in the Senate as each sought to demonstrate leadership in bringing the troops home. The outlines of the Obama plan were eventually reflected in the Biden-Levin effort.

But the focus of the campaign debate was what had happened in 2002. Clinton was under constant pressure to apologize for her vote for the Iraq resolution that year, while Obama stressed his original opposition to the war as a point of contrast with his rival.