Congress may take up bill to withdraw US advisers from Iraq
A look at the Middle East issues Congress will be addressing the week of July 21.
Congress may vote next week on legislation to withdraw the military advisers President Barack Obama has sent to Iraq.
The House is weighing “possible consideration” of bipartisan legislation that would give the administration until the end of the year to withdraw all troops except those needed to protect US diplomatic facilities and personnel, the office of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., announced late July 18. The privileged resolution was introduced last Friday, July 11, by war critics James McGovern, D-Mass., Walter Jones , R-N.C., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif.
“Now is the time for Congress to debate the merits of our military involvement in this latest Iraq conflict. Openly. Transparently. Do we approve of these deployments and any future escalation? If so, we should vote to authorize it. If we do not support it, then we should bring our troops back home,” McGovern said on the House floor at the time of introduction. “The time for that debate is now. Not when the first body bag comes home from Iraq. Not when the first US airstrikes or bombs fall on Iraq. Not when we are embedded with Iraqi troops trying to take back an ISIS-held town. And, worst-case scenario, not when our troops are shooting their way out of an overtaken Baghdad.”
McGovern was referring to the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
