Today Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, endorsed a non-binding resolution by Republican Sen. John Warner opposing Bush’s “plan” to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq. This is in spite of the fact that Biden had co-authored a more strongly worded resolution. Susan Cornwell of Reuters reports,

“Now we have a real opportunity for the Senate to speak clearly” on Bush’s plan, said Biden, a candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Debate on the Warner resolution is expected to start in the Senate on Monday. Although it is not binding, it would be hard for Bush to ignore, Biden told his committee.

“If the majority of the Congress and the majority of the American people speak loudly, it’s very difficult I think for the president to totally dismiss that,” Biden said.

President Bush will, of course, dismiss it.

Bob Geiger has the text of the Warner resolution here. Also, Moveon.org’s Tom Matzzie endorsed the resolution as a good “first step” in an emailed press release. He wrote,

The compromise language would not constrain the Congress from using all of its powers to stop the escalation and force President Bush to implement an exit plan. The “power of the purse” has been wrongly caricatured as “cutting off the troops.” That has never happened in U.S. history nor should it. However, Congress has several times used its powers to stop a president’s use of military force.

If, after the vote, the president fails to respond to the will of a bipartisan majority in Congress, the American people and the Iraq Study Group then the Congress must without hesitation use all of its powers to stop President Bush and get America out of Iraq.

Noam N. Levey of the Los Angeles Times writes that

Senate Democratic leaders indicated they would back the Warner proposal as well. “I believe we have a better chance now,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said there was “near unanimity” among Democrats, adding that he wanted to make the Warner proposal the basis for debate Monday, when the Senate is expected to consider the issue.

Senator Russ Feingold is not on board, however, because he thinks the resolution is too weak.

[Update: I have word via email that Sen. Chris Dodd also opposes the Warner resolution as being way too wussy.]

At The Guardian, Ed Harriman gloomily predicts the U.S. will not leave Iraq no matter what Congress does.

The unpleasant truth is that George Bush, James Baker’s study group and many who support them agree that Iraq is much too important to American interests to be trusted entirely to the Iraqis. They also agree that US troops are going to stay in Iraq to fight on their own and to run the Iraqi army. Which means the war will get worse. Which means there are going to be a lot more dead Iraqis even if – and it’s a big if – there are fewer body bags carrying dead US soldiers by the next American elections.

Related:

At Newsweek, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball write,

The Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA may be headed for a new confrontation over an old issue: why an internal report documenting the agency’s failures in the run up to the September 11 terror attacks is still being withheld from the public.

At Slate, Fred Kaplan explains the Bush administration’s cockeyed strategy to promote sectarian conflict in the Middle East.

Farah Stockman reports for the Boston Globe on a report by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, which says that Iraq’s ministries are struggling to perform basic governmental functions.

In the Senate today, Gen. George Casey defended Bush’s new “policy” to the Armed Services Committee. The General faced tough questions from senators, including John McCain.