Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Reid: US an 'Occupying Force' in Iraq

It's nonsense to describe the US as an 'occupying force' when we are in Iraq at the request of a duly-constituted, elected, and representative Iraqi government. This represents nothing more than the Vietnamization of the Democratic party. Their reaction is becoming so extreme, that it cannot help but hurt their efforts to govern responsibly and win in 2008.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters Tuesday his next move on the Iraq war will be to limit the president's war authority, but he will not support taking away funding for the war

Defunding the war, the Nevada Democrat said, "is no strategy. We believe ... troops, at whatever cost to our treasury, we must take care of. We're not about to leave our military in Iraq or Afghanistan or anyplace else without the equipment or materials they need. ... We're talking about a redeployment, not having all the troops come home tomorrow.

Reid spoke to a group of Nevada reporters and individually to the Review-Journal before addressing the Legislature on Tuesday evening.

He said Senate Democrats plan to have a conference call Friday to come to consensus on an amendment that would limit the authorization to go to war President Bush was given by the Senate in 2002. U.S. troops in Iraq should only be used for anti-terrorism operations, force protection and training Iraqis, Reid said.

He also called for an international conference including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iran on the Iraq conflict.

"We're an occupying force, and the solution to this must come from people who have a larger stake in the neighborhood," he said.

The Democrats are lucky that their margins are too thin to do much on Iraq. But as Mort Kondracke points out today, they're playing with fire if they think the public will not turn on them for trying to micro-manage this effort.

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