John Thune: “as I listened this last week to media reports about a reported plan by Senate Democrats to deauthorize the Iraq war…”

“as I listened this last week to media reports about a reported plan by Senate Democrats to deauthorize the Iraq war resolution, my first reaction was that they cannot be serious; they cannot want to have Senators managing the war on terror from the floor of the Senate. We would be telling our commanders and our troops how to do their jobs. Under the latest Democratic proposal--which, incidentally, is now the fifth resolution that they have brought forward--that was unveiled last week, there would be no combat role for our troops in Iraq. Yet we would still allegedly have some number of troops there for training, support, and logistics. I think the question you have to ask with a policy such as that is, What if those troops are fired upon? Can they not return fire because the Senate says they are not to have a combat role? Just when I thought this debate had reached the low point on the depth chart, the Senate Democrats have drained a little more out of the pool. For weeks now, they have been attacking Republicans for blocking a debate on Iraq when nothing could be further from the truth. Republicans welcome a debate about Iraq. The only difference is we believe it should be a full, fair, and open debate. The Democratic leaders tried to prevent that by blocking any Republican amendments. The Democrats want a rigged, one-sided debate that has nothing to do with substance and everything to do with political theater.”