Warner, Levin agree on anti-escalation resolution

Compromise measure gives them a shot at the 60 votes they need to overcome filibuster threats.

Published February 1, 2007 3:05AM (EST)

Bad news for the White House: Two of the senators behind dueling resolutions that threatened to split the anti-escalation vote have reportedly reached agreement on a compromise measure they both can support.

The Associated Press says that Democratic Sen. Carl Levin and Republican Sen. John Warner have agreed on a measure that drops the harshest language from a resolution Levin introduced with Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel and drops wording in Warner's resolution that could have been read as suggesting that the Senate supported sending some additional U.S. troops to Iraq.

Combining forces, Levin and Warner have at least a chance of doing what neither could do without the other: attract the 60 votes necessary to survive a cloture vote forced by minority Republicans who want no anti-escalation resolution at all.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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Carl Levin D-mich. Iraq War