PORT TOWNSEND – In a split vote late Tuesday night, the City Council approved a modified resolution that calls for an end to the Iraq war by 2008, with U.S. forces handing over combat operations to the Iraqi army.
The council voted 5-2 to pass the resolution, with council members Geoff Masci and Laurie Medlicott voting against it.
More than 60 crowded the City Council chambers, many making impassioned pleas for adoption of the resolution.
Passage was in accord with the Baker-Hamilton bipartisan committee, which issued a Dec. 6 Iraq Study Group report.
The panel was led by former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton, former congressman.
The Iraq Study Group report concludes in its executive summary: “The United States must not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of American troops deployed in Iraq.”
The City Council’s resolution was notably different from what the Port Townsend Peace Movement proposed to it on Jan. 2.
That resolution called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within six months.
David Jenkins, president of the regional chapter of the Veterans for Peace, was one of those upset that the city was not calling for an end to the war in six months.
“As a member of Veterans for Peace, I am disappointed and dismayed that you changed the meaning of the resolution presented to you,” Jenkins told the council.
“When Veterans for Peace says not one more dead, not one more maimed and not one more family destroyed, we don’t mean in 2008.
“We mean today. Enough is enough.”
