US Senate backs indefinite occupation of Iraq

Then, by a 60-39 vote margin, the Senate rejected a non-binding resolution, introduced by Democrats Carl Levin and Jack Reed, calling on the Bush administration to begin withdrawing some American troops by the end of this year and to announce a timetable for further withdrawals. Six Democrats joined all but one Republican to defeat even this toothless measure.

The Senate vote must be considered in conjunction with two others recent developments. Congressional Republican leaders, prompted by the White House, killed a provision in the emergency war spending bill adopted last week that would have prohibited the use of funds to establish permanent US bases in Iraq. And the Pentagon released its latest schedule for troop rotations into Iraq, indicating that US military forces in the occupied country will remain at or above 130,000 well into 2007.

Only one conclusion can be drawn: the war in Iraq will not be ended through legislative action, which the Democrats, in any case, will not seriously pursue. Both of the official bourgeois parties, the Democrats no less than the Republicans, are committed to an open-ended American military occupation of the oil-rich country.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/jun2006/sena-j23.shtml