Feingold Calls War Bluff

Senate Democrats oppose the war in Iraq, they just don't plan on stopping it.

They have discovered that standing up to the president is not quite as easy as vilifying him.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has decided, however, to challenge what he calls the "timidity" of Democratic leaders. He is going to introduce legislation cutting off funding for the Iraq war and he may do it, he told me, as early as this week.

I reached him by telephone Monday in Fond du Lac, Wis., where he was conducting one of his "Listening Sessions" with voters during a snowstorm.

I asked him whether Democratic voters were further to the left than their elected leaders, especially their presidential candidates, when it came to the war.

"That is not only true of Democrats," Feingold said, "it is true of the public as a whole. The mainstream view of the American people is to get out of Iraq."

Cutting off funds only for the planned 21,500 troop surge in Iraq and passing resolutions condemning the war has become the fallback position of Senate Democrats who are fearful of being portrayed as unpatriotic, cowardly, "Mommy Party" haters of the military.

And they have reason to be afraid. The White House plays hardball. The White House is never reluctant to accuse those who oppose its policies in Iraq of being bashers of our troops and abettors of our enemies.

The Bush administration released a statement last weekend saying that even those who just want to prohibit the surge are sending "the wrong message to our troops, our enemies, and the Iraqi people."

In Iowa Sunday, Hillary Clinton said: "At this point, I am not ready to cut off funding for American troops. I am not going to do that." She said that even if Congress passed such a bill, it would be pointless because we have "a president who will veto anything that impinges on his authority."

Feingold is not impressed with that argument. "It is not true this is a futile exercise," he said. "We can say no."

If, for instance, the Democrats attached an Iraq funding cutoff to an appropriations bill, the president would risk shutting down the government by vetoing it.

But some Democrats are worried. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told my colleague John Bresnahan Thursday, Republicans "would like this debate to be as (to) whether or not we are going to be cutting off money for troops."

And others, including Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., who is running for president, says a funding cutoff probably is unconstitutional.

Which is why Feingold is chairing a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday to "help inform my colleagues and the public about Congress's power to end a war."

Feingold has gathered various legal and other experts to testify, but the result is a foregone conclusion. "I am going to lay out the reality that Congress does have this power," Feingold said. "The president does not have the unilateral power to (continue the war) without our consent."

Feingold said a cutoff of funding six months after the law is enacted "makes sense, it is constitutional, and our troops will not be left in the lurch."

Under Feingold's plan, the administration would have to safely redeploy troops from Iraq except for those needed to target counter-terrorism operations and provide security for U.S "infrastructure and civilian personnel" there, and a "limited number" to train Iraqi security services.

Feingold is going to put his fellow Democrats to the test: If you are really against this war, he is going to tell them, now is the time to show it.

"Those (Democrats) who are timid on this, who are they listening to?" he said. "The people don't want us to talk just about ending the escalation. They think this whole war is wrong."


By: ROGER SIMON @ Politico

Feingold Pushes Plan to Cut Off War Funds

By: John Bresnahan
January 25, 2007 06:57 PM EST

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has scheduled a hearing next Tuesday in his Judiciary Committee subcommittee to explore whether Congress has the authority to cut off funding for the U.S. military campaign in Iraq. The move comes as Congress prepares to vote on a congressional resolution opposing President Bush's escalation of the war.

Feingold, a fierce war critic, will force Democrats to consider an option many consider politically suicidal: denying funds to the military and U.S. soldiers to force a quicker end to the war. Democratic leaders have privately called on members to restrain from cutting off funding and focus on congressional resolutions condemning the Bush policy. The resolutions are nonbinding and therefore symbolic.

Republicans "would like this debate to be as whether or not we are going to be cutting off money for the troops," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently told The Politico. "The logical conclusion is that a lot of things can happen. But right now, the most important thing is to tell the president that what he has done with the escalation is wrong. And that's what we are doing, bi-partisanly."

Feingold, who chairs the Subcommittee on the Constitution, will question several witnesses, including a Library of Congress official and legal experts from Harvard, Duke, and the University of Virginia, on the issue. Senior Bush administration officials have publicly argued that Congress' has no such right, but Feingold plans to introduce legislation to force President Bush to American forces out of the troubled country.

"Congress holds the power of the purse and of the president continues to advance his failed Iraq policy, we have have the responsibility to use that power to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq," Feingold said in a statement released by his office on Thursday. "I will soon be introducing legislation to use the power of the purse to end what is clearly one of the greatest mistakes in the history of the nation's foreign policy."

Politico.com

Feingold to Bush: Get our troops out

Just one day after President George W. Bush announced the deployment of 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wis., proposed Congressional intervention using "the power of the purse."

In a Jan. 11 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Feingold criticized the Bush administration's new strategy and asked Congress to use its financial capabilities to restrict the war's funding.

Feingold has long been one of the nation's most outspoken critics against the war in Iraq and has consistently introduced legislation for a withdrawal timetable of troops. Earlier this year, he promised to draft legislation to the 110th Congress that would redeploy troops from Iraq to other parts of the world.

"Congress must bring an end to what has been one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in the history of our nation," Feingold said in a statement shortly after the president's Jan. 10 address. "It is time to bring our troops out of Iraq and refocus on defeating the global terrorist networks that threaten this country."

In an e-mail to The Badger Herald, U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said she supports Feingold's call to restrict the war's funding.

"The power of the purse strings is the only means Congress has to end this misguided war," Baldwin said. "Certainly that will be in the forefront of our minds when the president sends us his next request for funding."

Baldwin also said in a statement that she supports a measure by U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., that calls for Congressional approval of any escalation of the war and a specific plan for a phased withdrawal of American forces.

U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., expressed sincere confidence in the president's new strategy in a Jan. 10 statement, calling it "the first step to removing our soldiers from Iraq, and bringing them back home for good."

The president hopes his strategy of increasing American forces in Baghdad and the Anbar province -- the "home base for al-Qaida" -- will place continued pressure on Iraqi insurgents.

"If we increase our support at this crucial moment and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home," Bush said, according to a transcript released by the White House.

Bush also called on the Iraqi government to uphold its key benchmarks this year, including provincial elections, shared oil revenues with civilians, $10 billion on infrastructure and the responsibility of securing all provinces by November.

More so than in previous announcements, Bush also conceded the failures of past strategies.

"The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me," Bush said. "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."

by Keegan Kyle Badger Herald Friday, January 19, 2007

Feingold calls for cutting funds to end U.S. involvement in Iraq

Sen. Russ Feingold said Thursday that he will seek to end the U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq by cutting off funding in Congress.

“I have consistently called for the redeployment of our military from Iraq,’’ he said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “... But that advice has not been heeded. And now Congress must use its main power — the power of the purse — to put an end to our involvement in this disastrous war.’’

Feingold’s comments came a day after President Bush announced his plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.

“And I’m not talking here only about the surge or escalation,’’ Feingold said.