http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/27/lugar-iraq-timetable/Lugar: Plans To End The War Are ‘Very Partisan,’ ‘Will Not Work’
Earlier this week, Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) delivered a major speech on the Senate floor calling “victory” in Iraq, as defined by President Bush, “almost impossible.” Abandoning his unyielding public support for the war, he called on the President to downsize the U.S. military presence in Iraq in order to “strengthen our position in the Middle East, and reduce the prospect of terrorism, regional war, and other calamities.”
Unfortunately, Lugar has no intention of acting on his rhetoric. Speaking this morning with NBC’s Matt Lauer, Lugar said that Congressional measures aimed at curtailing U.S. military involvement in Iraq, including “so-called timetables, benchmarks,” have “no particular legal consequence,” are “very partisan,” and “will not work.”
Watch it/read transcript at link:
While Lugar now decries legislative solutions to Iraq as “partisan” and of no “legal consequence,” Lugar himself voted in favor of cutting funds and setting a timetable for redeployment of U.S. forces out of Somalia in 1993.
Also, several prominent members of Lugar’s own party have already expressed support for a legislative solution in Iraq. Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) said, “I think that many of us are going to look at legislation that will limit the number of troops” and Sen. John Warner (R-VA) called the administration’s September reporting date “too long to wait to revise U.S. war policy.”