Senator Corker said generals should decide when to withdraw from Iraq

By Paige Gabriel

Staff ReporterLast week, both the House and the Senate passed Bill HR 1591 which will authorize $122 billion in funding for the war in Iraq and call for withdrawal of troops from Iraq starting in the summer of this year and ending in September of 2008.

In the coming weeks, the bill will go back to the House and the Senate so that the two bodies can agree on a form of the bill to pass on to the President. President Bush has promised to veto the bill if it gets to his desk.

Senator Bob Corker from Tennessee voted against the bill because he said he does not support the proposed exit date.

"I voted against this bill because it includes language that sets an arbitrary date for withdrawal in Iraq," Corker said. "I believe we must give General Petraeus an opportunity to turn what has been a downward spiral in Iraq into an upward spiral so that Iraq has the ability to take over its own destiny and maintain its own security."

Craig Laing, associate professor of sociology, anthropology, and geography, also disagrees with an exit date being included in the bill.

"This is a political move in my opinion to embarrass the President," Laing said. "The democrats have done everything since the Florida election in 2000 to thwart his efforts and this is a continuation of those efforts. What you have is [if you set an exit date] then they can just sit back and wait for us to pull out and then all Hell will break loose."

Corker also believes that setting an exit date will tie the hands of the military.

" I don't want to hinder General Petraeus' ability to succeed, and I believe that setting an arbitrary withdrawal date-before we have even had the opportunity to assess our progress-would do just that," Corker said. "General Petraeus has stated on numerous occasions that we will know by mid-summer whether progress is being made. Instead of offering thoughts about what might happen in the future, I believe we should give General Petraeus and out troops on the ground in Iraq the time, resources, and support they need and deserve."

Laing agrees with President Bush's promise to veto the bill if it passes in both the House and Senate.

"He has promised to veto it and I surely hope he does," Laing said. "It's hard in my mind for the Democrats to continue to say that they support the troops and then continually try to tie the hands of the Commander in Chief. The Commander in Chief makes that decision and he can consult with them but to start passing bills like this is just politicizing something that doesn't need to be politicized."

Shela Van Ness, associate professor of sociology, said she believes setting an exit date is a step in the right direction.

"There's been no plan from the beginning so therefore I do think that it's a nudge," Van Ness said. "There has been no real plan for how to get the principle parties to the table because this is clearly not going to be solved militarily unless you engulf the entire Middle East in war in which case you end up with other countries getting involved."

Van Ness said she would prefer for the Democrats to make the President start negotiations with the Middle East rather than set an exit date.

"So there has been no negotiated settlement put on the table to say well lets just have a meeting and get together with the people who hate us and the people who are attacking each other and lets have big meeting or conference or something and lets call in the UN to sponsor this and lets get all the players to the table," Van Ness said. "I would rather have seen them say there has to be a conference, an international conference to discuss options and bring serious players to the table from all of these countries that are involved. One of the issues that you don't hear much about is that you have all these people leaving Iraq like rats leaving a ship and these other countries are getting inundated with millions escaping from Iraq and they don't' have an infrastructure to care for all those people."

Binetou Soumare, a Jefferson County, Tenn., freshman, said he also supports setting an exit date for the troops in Iraq.

"I don't agree with going to other places and imposing our own views, because I think they should be able to govern their country the way that they want to without having us there telling them what's right and what's wrong," Soumare said. "I think it is a good thing that they have a date to look toward [to] for leaving. I don't want to sound like I am putting them all in the same boat, but Republicans tend to do the whole 'This is your country and you should be patriotic' and if you support the war then you don't like the troops and that just isn't true."

Hiroshi Yamakawa, a graduate student from Nagoya, Japan, offered his opinion on an exit date.

"An exit date sounds possible because it does not seem like it is not necessary to stay there any longer," Yamakawa said.

"I think that is what the American people think, there is no longer any profit for the American people and that is why they are wanting to exit."

Emily Ottinger, a Sevierville, Tenn., freshman, said she thinks the United States needs to end the war but she thinks that there could be some problems with setting an exit date.

"The spending is not good for our country with what the numbers are right now," Ottinger said. "I just saw something on the news and there was a bombing recently somewhere, I think it was in Palestine, and they are urging even more for anti-American and anti-Al Qaeda as well, at the same time. They are grouping the two together, American and Al Qaeda."

"If there was an exit date and it wasn't kept, if the President promised that there would be an exit date and that date came and he didn't pull the troops out then there would be an uproar and probably a call for impeachment," Ottinger said. "If it's upheld then yes but if it is not upheld then it would be really bad."