Hagel: This Is a Ping Pong Game With American Lives

See transcript.

More power to Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) for railing at his fellow Senators (to their faces) about their cowardly responses to Bush's smoke and mirrors escalation ploy. Hagel was the only Repub on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote for the Biden-Hagel-Levin resolution, which passed the other day by a 12-9 margin. Most of the Repubs on the panel were fairly critical of Bush in their comments, but Hagel couldn't shame them into supporting even this watered down, non-binding resolution on Iraq, let alone anything truly restrictive on Bush.

In another segment of his comments, Hagel had this to say:

"What do you believe? What are you willing to support? What do you think? Why were you elected?" he asked. "If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. This is a tough business."

Many Senators are introducing their own resolutions, almost all of them nonbinding, with slightly varying positions and language. Biden and others are claiming that tougher measures "with teeth" will eventually be drafted, that this is just the beginning of a long process of negotation on a "consensus" Senate position, etc. Meanwhile, BushCo is rushing to get additional troops on the ground in Iraq before anyone can mess with the money to fund it, cap troops, etc.

Repubs other than Hagel have been verbally critical about Bush's plans but have so far refused to go much further. They're apparently inclined to join a handful of Dems to back Sen. Warner's more tepid resolution, which is now supported by Ben Nelson (D-NE), Susan Collins (R-ME), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Bill Nelson (D-FL), Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Norm Coleman (R-MN).

Biden and Hagel reportedly will be working with Warner to craft a compromise resolution more Senators can sign onto, which would, at a minimum, include these provisions:

... a call for U.S. troops to be re-deployed to guard Iraq's borders, focus on counterterrorism and speeding up the training of Iraqi troops; and a call for diplomatic efforts to engage Iraq's neighbors in the pursuit of a political settlement to the war.

A proposed amendment to the Biden resolution by Sen. Dodd to cap troop numbers at January levels failed by a margin of 15-6 with 5 Dems voting nay -- Biden (DE), Cardin (MD), Nelson (FL), Casey (PA) and Webb (VA). Like too many on both sides of the aisle, these folks like to talk tough, but the odds of their taking any truly effective action seem long. Clearly, we'll have to keep pushing to convince them that they, too, may face a loss of their seats if they persist in refusing to represent the people on Iraq. As Sen. Russ Feingold said,

"This is not a time for trying to forge a compromise that everybody can be a part of. This is a time to stop the needless deaths of American troops in Iraq."