WASHINGTON — JULY 18 — “Today, a majority of the Senate backed binding legislation with a firm end date to redeploy our troops from Iraq. This shows how far we’ve come since August 2005 when I became the first Senator to propose a deadline to bring the mistake in Iraq to an end. If we had enacted my proposal when I first offered it, our troops would be home right now. Although a number of Republicans have finally acknowledged that the President’s Iraq policy is a failure, their filibuster of the Levin-Reed amendment shows they are still failing to back up their words with action. The Levin-Reed amendment is by no means perfect, but its binding provisions to end our extensive military involvement in Iraq are a significant step forward. With their decision to filibuster, the Republicans have prevented the Senate from voting to bring the open-ended mission in Iraq to an end, and have once again ignored the calls of the American people.”

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