DK: Urge and send messages to the democratic leadership of the house and the senate, that ending the war doesn't take legislation-- that it takes the will of the leadership to go to the president and say that they are not going to offer a bill-- that the president has to take the steps to bring the troops home. Now a parrallel process must ensue, and that is a peacekeeping and security force in the region would have to be assembled that would come in as our troops leave, because you don't want to leave a vacuum.
Now some people will say, if the congress takes this action, the president is just going to refuse to do anything.
And I would say that's a direct path to his removal from office, because he can't leave the troops out there without protection. And if he's keeping them there, despite the will of the congress being expressed, then he would be in kind of a tough way.
RK: So, the will of the congress will be basically be stated by one of the leaders in either the house or the senate...DK: Actually, that's what's being done right now, by continuing to fund it. If they determine they're not going to fund it anymore, and tell the president that, then it's over.
RK: The one question I want to be relly clear on, either Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, individually, could stop this war by going to the president and saying, I'm not going to bring legislation to the floor that will fund the war any further. Either one of those individuals could do now, right?
DK: Nancy works on consensus, with the other democratic leaders. But if the democratic leadership, and I don't work with Harry Reid, so I'm not sure how he works, but if the Democratic leadership went to the president and told him what I told you, we'd be on the way to ending the war.
RK: IF this happened, if we got this to happen, what would you expect the president to do? The Republicans? The media? How would they respond to this. It seems to me it is important to plan how to respond to their response.
DK: The American people already made the decision to get out of Iraq by voting for a Democratic house and senate, so the way you respond is to say you are just bowing to the will of the people as expressed in the 2006 election.
Now, Kucinich says they would also have to inform Bush. That would make it official.
Then everything would hit the fan.
I asked some leading progressives their opinions. Here's the email I sent them:
I'm working on an article on the day after-- the day after the house or senate refuse to fund the war anymore.
What will it look like? What will Bush, the republicans, the media, the pentagon, the troops, the retired generals do? What will they say? What can the dems do to be prepared? As weeks turn to months, what will it look like?
We ought to have an idea about this, if we're going to advocate and plan for it.
You can answer any part of the question you like. I hope to integrate some of the answers into the article I'm putting together.
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