Posted on 08/02/2007 11:53:48 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
House votes to ensure troops' home time
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 2 minutes ago
Brushing aside a veto threat, the Democratic-controlled House voted Thursday to give U.S. troops guaranteed time at home between deployments to Iraq.
The vote was 229-194 on the legislation, designed to complicate the Pentagon's ability to rotate sufficient troops into the war zone.
"This is about our families and our troops," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., who repeatedly said that opposing the measure was "a vote for the status quo" in a war in its fifth year.
On the other side, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., called the legislation "a backhanded attempt to force a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq." Noting that the bill does not apply to troops ordered to Afghanistan, he said, "If this were a sincere effort ... it would apply to all deployments."
Democrats staged the vote as Defense Secretary Robert Gates became the latest administration official to acknowledge miscalculations in Iraq, and a national public opinion poll said support for a troop withdrawal exceeds 60 percent.
Gates told reporters on the way back from the Middle East that six months after additional troops were ordered to the war zone, he is more optimistic about security improvements in Iraq than about chances for political reconciliation by the government there.
"In some ways we probably all underestimated the depth of the mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation," Gates said of Iraqi's squabbling political leaders.
"The kinds of legislation they're talking about will establish the framework of Iraq for the future so it's almost like our constitutional convention. ... And the difficulty in coming to grips with those, we may all have underestimated six or eight months ago."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Total political BS. Along with the recent tour extension came a minimum time home before the next deployment. It’s already policy.
I always find it amusing when a bunch of drunken, dope-smoking hippy types try to school our generals on how to run strategic deployments. When will these idiot politicians learn that warcraft is best left to the war-fighters?
Why can't these moron Democrats add?
March 2003 to now -- the campaign is in the fourth year.
Misleading poll question, as no one would say they NEVER want the troops home....
With 24/7 MSM coverage of negative stories about the war, mis-representations of the progress, mis-representations of the War's approval by Congress, "Bush was selected-Not Elected" rhetoric, etc., is it any wonder why after 5 years of hearing this B.S. Americans don't understand the Mission?
Woops ... a little unintended candor?: “The vote was ... designed [intended] to complicate the Pentagon’s ability to rotate sufficient troops into the war zone.”
So it wasn’t for the soldiers and their families?
Face it, you could care less about the troops or their families — this is about trying to engineer an American defeat and embarrass the President to your political benefit.
Home time for the troops isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but congress has NO BUSINESS sticking its nose into this kind of micromanagement. It’s for the President and the military to make these decisions, based on their best judgement.
The Pentagon has a fixed number of personnel to fill billets in Iraq. If Congress mandates that the duration between deployments has to be longer, the only thing the Pentagon can do is to lengthen the tour lengths.
If they did this during WWII, we’d all be speaking either German or Japanese. Some of our guys and women were overseas for four years or more. This is war folks. Remember, for the first three years of WWII, we were loosing. It took time to understand what we were up against. It’s no different in Iraq. We are just now understanding what is going on, what went wrong and what is working. Things will start changing pretty fast now.
This might leave relatively inexperienced troops to deal with hazarardous situations (IEDs, etc).
Or.....bring back the draft.
espo the ass puppet of the dnc
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
“March 2003 to now — the campaign is in the fourth year.”
Actually it IS in the fifth year. Four completed, working now on the fifth, or in the fifth year.
Get it?
I don’t take seriously anything liberals say anymore. They all disgust me.
This is one area where I’ve disagreed with the administration from the get-go. I simply don’t believe in wars on “rotation.”
It should be balls-to-the-wall, full mobilization, unconditional surrender, blast the kingdom come out of the enemy until they cry uncle.
This requires us to KNOW what we want to accomplish, and then set the entire nation to accomplishing it.
Like the Marines say, “The Marines are at war; America’s at the movies.”
In WWII, when we had an atom bomb, we used it. The alternative was sending another million GI's to their deaths fighting for the Japanese homeland.
If you're going to tell the military to fight a war with one or both hands tied behind it's back, then you had damn well better hope that you have enough troops enlisted to do the job.
I know I'm bucking the trend here, but the Rats have found a winning issue on this. They've made the political question into concern for the troops, rather than making President Bush look good. His slap-and-tickle rules of engagement have let him paint himself into this corner. If we had wiped out just a few major Iraqi towns that showed early resistance, we could have nipped this thing in the bud. That was the strategy behind A-bombing two Japanese cities.
Yes, we had soldiers deployed for long time periods in WWII, but when they came across enemy villages, they were allowed to win. They weren't stuck playing kindergarten cop to a bunch of facist thugs trying to settle old scores.
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