[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Page 2671]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, yesterday, at 3:16 in the afternoon, the 
Senate voted to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2633, 
which is a bill to provide for the safe redeployment of U.S. troops 
from Iraq.
  After the cloture vote, I made a proposal that we would have 
postcloture debate for a period of time, a significant period of time, 
agree to the motion, and then go to the bill. But once we completed 
action on this, S. 2633, we would have a cloture vote on the motion to 
proceed to the next matter that I talked about earlier today. That 
consent was rejected.
  I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time be yielded back, 
and the motion to proceed be agreed to; that upon disposition of S. 
2633, the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the 
motion to proceed to S. 2634; further, that if cloture is invoked, 
notwithstanding rule XXII, the Senate then proceed to vote on the 
motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3221, the 
housing bill.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Reserving the right to object, the question of the 
Iraq debate, once again at this particular juncture, was not the 
decision of the minority. Nevertheless, having put the Iraq issue back 
before the Senate, there are a number of members of my conference, many 
of whom have been to Iraq recently, who were anxious to discuss the 
undeniable progress that has occurred in Iraq over the last 6 months.
  We had a good discussion yesterday. I have more members who would 
like to continue the discussion today. There is obviously an 
opportunity later in the morning or this afternoon to discuss further 
with the majority leader the possibility of shortening the time.
  But for the moment, there are a number of Senators on my side of the 
aisle who are anxious to discuss the progress in Iraq, happy to have 
the debate time. Therefore, for the time being, I object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, let me say briefly, the matter before 
us, the Feingold withdrawal amendment is in basically the form it has 
been before us, has been voted on four times before. Each of the times 
it was voted on in the past, one could argue that things were going 
less well in Iraq than they are today. The highest number of votes the 
Feingold withdrawal proposal has received at any point in these 4 votes 
is 29 votes.
  It will be, should it be voted on, defeated once again. It certainly 
should be because now we have had 6 months or so of undeniable progress 
on all fronts. The security situation is dramatically improved. Even on 
the political side, where I think Members on both sides were frustrated 
with the new Iraqi democracy, they finally have begun to take the kind 
of steps that are needed--the debaathification law was approved, local 
elections have been scheduled for later in the year.
  They are finally making some progress on the Government side as well 
as the undeniable progress on the security side, at this point, not 
brought about strictly by American troops but also the sons of Iraq. 
These people who decided to defend their neighborhoods and defeat, help 
us defeat al-Qaida, have grown dramatically in terms of numbers and 
commitment.
  So there is, as I indicated, a lot of interest on our side in 
continuing to at least point out the progress that has been made in 
Iraq, both in terms of security and on the political side. So we will 
have that discussion later into the morning, and the majority leader 
and I will have an opportunity later in the day to discuss where we go 
from here.

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