Iraq is focus of Senate jabs
2006-10-11
Source: Providence Journal
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rss feedIn a war of words over Iraq yesterday, U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee accused Democratic challenger Sheldon Whitehouse of flip-flopping on the need for a troop withdrawal deadline, while Whitehouse faulted Chafee - the only Republican to vote against the war - for not doing enough since to bring it to an end.
Neither came out in favor of setting a firm deadline for withdrawal. But Chafee needled Whitehouse for backing, and then withdrawing his backing, for a fixed deadline for withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq, such as the mid-2007 deadline that Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts proposed in June. Republican Chafee voted against the measure, and Democrat Whitehouse said he would have supported it.
The Chafee camp went so far as to suggest this headline for a story about Whitehouse's attempts "to find a politically popular position'' on the war: "Chafee courageously opposes war while Whitehouse plays politics.''
But a Whitehouse spokeswoman sought to frame the candidates' positions this way: "Sheldon Whitehouse and Lincoln Chafee agree that we should never have gone to war in Iraq. The difference here is that Sheldon has clearly, steadfastly and consistently called on this president and Congress to take responsibility for their actions and get our troops out of Iraq in a rapid and responsible way.… Chafee, on the other hand, defers to this president and refuses … to call, as Sheldon has done, for the resignation of [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld, the chief architect of this disaster.''
"This is an issue of sins of omission,'' said Whitehouse spokeswoman Alex Swartsel, suggesting that Whitehouse had been speaking out, at every opportunity, while Chafee had been "virtually silent.''
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