Senators Reject Guaranteed Time Stateside for Troops Deployed in War

July 11, 2007 — -- Senators rejected a proposal this morning by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, both Vietnam veterans, that would have guaranteed troops equal time posted in the United States as they spend deployed in war zones overseas.

Democrats had tried to lobby for the amendment by painting it as a "support the troops" measure and pointing out the military credentials of its bipartisan sponsors.

The Senate began debate this week on its annual defense authorization bill and will also consider both binding and nonbinding measures to draw down the number of American troops in Iraq.

"Who is bearing the burden of this war?" asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at a news conference this morning with veterans groups. "It's not the administration. It's certainly not Congress. It's certainly not the Iraqi government. It's our troops, being deployed again and again and again."

Republicans, most of whom argued that the amendment would infringe on the president's right to be commander in chief and deploy the troops as much and as often as he pleased, said that this amendment was, in the words of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a "backdoor effort to hamstring" Gen. David Petraeus as he wages the war on the ground.

They said it would have effectively ended the surge by requiring that soldiers who are currently serving 15-month tours in Iraq be given 15 months posted in the United States and give National Guard troops three years between deployments. The military would effectively run out of deployable troops and the president would be forced to transition the role of U.S. troops in Iraq.

"It would do through the back door what they can't do through the front door," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who opposes attempts by Democrats and some Republicans to reduce the U.S. presence in Iraq. "The best thing we can do for the troops is let them win," he said after the vote.

Some of the Republicans would have supported a nonbinding alternative, but Democrats rejected an offer to vote on both amendments with a caveat insisted on by Republicans that both would need 60 votes.

Just before the vote on the Senate floor, Reid accused Republicans of "protecting our president rather than protecting our troops."

The amendment was defeated when it failed in a procedural cloture vote 56-41 to reach the de facto 60 threshold votes required for most legislation in the bitterly divided Senate.

Seven Republicans voted for the amendment. Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut opposed it, but all Democrats supported it.

"The question in this amendment is not whether you support this war or whether you don't. It's not whether you want to wait until July or September to see whether one particular set of opinions or benchmarks or summaries might be coming in. The question is more than four years into the ground operations in Iraq that we owe stability and a reasonable cycle of deployment to the men and women who are carrying our nation's burdens," said Webb, whose son Jimmy recently returned from a tour in Iraq as a Marine.

But the Republicans who argued most ardently against the amendment also have military credentials and also have children who would be effected by it. Sen. John McCain, who was a Navy pilot and prisoner of war during Vietnam, argued with Webb on the Senate floor about the amendment.

"As to whether this is a good or bad idea, I'm here to say it is a terrible idea," McCain said. "It is not remotely a go idea. The intent of the amendment is to take care of the troops. I don't question anybody's intent. If you want to take care of the troops, let them win. What we are about to do with this amendment is something we have never done in the history of the country. We are about to go down the road where the Congress steps into military operations and creates congressional mandates that basically change the relationship between the commander, the executive branch and the congressional branch in a way that I think is very ill-suited to winning the next war. It is a dangerous precedent to allow troop rotations to be governed by politicians who are looking for the next election."

Webb pointed out to McCain that the amendment would give the president the ability to bypass the guarantee of rotational cycles in times of grave national emergency, but McCain was not allayed.

Republicans also argued that supporters had no business attaching the amendment to the defense policy bill.

"You would have a situation where 535 people thinking about their next election would be telling the commander in chief, 'No, don't go.' What would have happened in Bosnia if the Republican Congress had been able to dictate what President Clinton did," said Graham.

At the Democratic news conference before the vote, veterans activists from both Vietnam and Iraq argued that the current rotational cycle was breaking the U.S. military.

"The troops are drawing themselves down," said Bobby Muller, the president of Veterans for America, at the morning news conference. Muller argued that it would eventually not matter if the president reduced troop levels because a recent study by the Pentagon outlined the detrimental effect of rotational deployments on troops and their families.

Muller also pointed anecdotally to his own experience as an advocate of Vietnam veterans. "I have never met a Vietnam vet who served three tours who is right," Muller said.

Democrats who supported the bill promised to offer another, more broadly worded amendment that might be able to reach the 60-vote threshold.