In response to complaints from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Webb said he had modified his amendment to allow a 120-day delay in enacting it and to exempt Special Operations units. He said it also granted the president authority to waive the amendment's limitations in the event of an operational emergency. His provision was endorsed by the 360,000-member Military Officers Association of America, the nation's largest organization of active and retired officers and their families.
Hagel charged that the administration's answer to its mistakes in Iraq has been to "just keep grinding down the people out there who've been fighting and dying." Service members who have bearing the burden of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ought to spend at least as much time at home as they do in the war zones, he said. "Is that outrageous?"
McCain called the measure a "backdoor" attempt to change the course of the war and argued that it was unconstitutional because it encroached on presidential powers.
Too bad house and senate votes aren't televised on the MSM pm news!
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