The U.S. House of Representatives easily approved last week a resolution that would make clear that the
Those are hot-button topics among liberals since the White House has recently indicated that President Bush may intend to keep a military presence in
The resolution states that the
U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., joined with 23 other representatives to vote against the resolution. In doing so, he was disagreeing with 399 colleagues, including New Mexico Reps. Heather Wilson, a Republican, and Tom Udall, a Democrat.
In a statement released by his spokesman, Pearce said “there’s no such thing as a permanent base. Around the world, all of our bases are only there at the invitation of the host country. If they ask us to leave, we leave.”
“Even domestically, we have a base relocation and closure process that routinely moves and closes bases every four or five years,” Pearce said. “Further, it is the responsibility of the armed forces to decide where they need to set up bases and move troops around the world. Congress has the obligation to fund them or not to fund them.”
“Regarding the oil issue, I do not know of an attempt ever to use
Pearce’s last statement will especially rile liberals who believe the president’s unchanging strategy in
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has its eyes on Pearce but has not yet jumped into the 2008 campaign against him, attacked Pearce’s vote.
“This vote just shows how out of touch he is with the people of
Pearce’s vote is further evidence that, as the war continues to lose the support of the American public, Pearce will continue to back the president’s policy. Pearce, at least as indicated by his public statements, is ideologically aligned with the president on this issue and doesn’t intend to jump ship even as other Republicans are doing just that.
It will be interesting to see how that affects his 2008 re-election bid.