Senators Harkin and Feingold Don’t View Terrorist Threat In Iraq To Be In U.S. National Security Interest

In one of many votes held during a late night session on Capitol Hill Tuesday night, the U.S. Senate overwhelming passed an amendment expressing:

The sense of the Senate that it is in the national security interest of the United States that Iraq not become a failed state and a safe haven for terrorists.

The Amendment (S 2100) passed by a 94-3 vote. Wisconsin junior Senator Russ Feingold voted against the symbolic amendment; Feingold has been a vocal opponent of the Iraq conflict since well before the U.S. launched military operations in Spring 2003.

Also voting against the amendment were two key members of the Democratic Senate leadership: President Pro Tempore Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Iowa Senator (and Assistant Majority Leader) Tom Harkin. With Harkin up for re-election in 2008, this is the kind of vote that might appear in negative television ads run by his to-be-determined Republican opponent to portray Harkin as soft on national security and the war on terror.