Senate Rejects Democrats' Proposals for Iraq Pullout

Senate Rejects Democrats' Proposals for Iraq Pullout

(Update1)
June 22 (Bloomberg) -- The Senate rejected two measures proposed by Democrats calling on President George W. Bush to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

The Republican-controlled Senate today defeated by a vote of 86-13 an amendment offered by Democratic Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin that would have required almost all of the 127,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq to be withdrawn by July 1, 2007.

The chamber also defeated 60-39 a non-binding Democratic ``sense of the Senate'' proposal offered by Senators Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island that called on Bush to begin withdrawing troops by December, without setting a deadline for a full pullout.

Snip...

Democrats were divided over which of the two proposals to support, a withdrawal with a deadline proposed by Kerry or a ``phased redeployment'' proposed by Levin that is similar to a measure Representative Jack Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, proposed in the House of Representatives in November. Thirty-one Democrats joined the chamber's 55 Republicans in voting against the Kerry proposal.

``There is no other reason to be in Iraq a year from now except for chasing al Qaeda, or standing up Iraqi forces or protecting our facilities,'' Kerry said.

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