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Apparently, there's more than one way to end the Iraq war. One way has lots of support and the other way, not so much:

USA Today/Gallup Poll. March 2-4, 2007. N=1,010 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"Would you favor or oppose Congress taking each of the following actions in regards to the war in Iraq?

"Setting a time-table for withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of next year"
Favor: 60%
Oppose: 39%

"Denying the funding needed to send any additional U.S. troops to Iraq"
Favor: 37%
Oppose: 61%

So, if Congress really only has one check on the Commander in Chief -- power of the purse -- what does this tell you?

It tells you that Congress should vote to fully fund a 100% withdrawal of US troops from Iraq before the end of 2008.

Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), co-chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a founder of the Out of Iraq Caucus, is drafting an amendment that would allow financing only to protect American troops in Iraq pending a full withdrawal under a set timetable:

Assuming the supplemental bill is unsatisfactory to the caucus, war opponents are discussing whether to threaten to vote against it when it comes to a vote in the House floor in mid-March, unless the House leadership also permits a vote on the amendment from Ms. Lee.

Ms. Lee said her goal was to shift the discussion to a “fully funded withdrawal” from “cutting off funding.”

“There’s a distinction between cutting off funding and using the funding to begin a speedy and secure withdrawal within a specific timeframe,” she said.

A couple of thoughts:

• Earlier polling had shown a very strong majority in favor of Murtha's proposal to make "surge-funding" conditional on certain readiness benchmarks. What happened to support for that? It cannot have melted away so fast. Is it all in how you ask the question?
• As a practical matter, I'm not sure how Lee's proposal could be an amendment to the supplemental. For example, if the supplemental is shot down, how can the amendment to it pass and become binding? I'm not a parliamentarian so that seems confusing. But I like this approach.

Bottom line: Enough already with the non-binding resolutions that try to make everyone happy -- in the end, no one is happy.

End the war already.