Fallon challenges statement that Boswell voted for Iraq withdrawal

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

(Des Moines Register)

by JANE NORMAN
Washington, D.C. - A Democratic challenger to Rep. Leonard Boswell slammed the Iowa Democrat's votes on the war Tuesday, the same day two top U.S. officials in Iraq testified before Congress.

Ed Fallon of Des Moines, who's challenging Boswell in the June primary, said the congressman has been too slow to demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Boswell voted in favor of use of force in Iraq in 2002.

Fallon said Boswell then opposed in repeated votes a timetable for withdrawal. Fallon challenged a recent statement by Boswell that he had voted "five or six times" for withdrawal.

"Congressman Boswell should either acknowledge that his consistent support of the war for five years was a mistake and apologize for it, or come out in the open and defend his record," Fallon said.

Boswell's campaign said Fallon is wrong.

"It appears as if Ed Fallon continues to live in a fantasy world where facts and campaign finance laws don't apply to him. Leonard Boswell has voted five times to begin the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq," said Betsy Shelton, communications director for the Boswell campaign.

Fallon, to point out Boswell's opposition to withdrawal, cited a vote on May 10, 2007. Boswell opposed a bill that called for withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq within 90 days of the bill's enactment. It failed, 255-171.

He also cited Boswell's June 2007 vote in favor of a bill appropriating money for the State Department and foreign operations, saying it lacked a timetable for withdrawal.

However, Boswell's campaign said he voted five times for withdrawal.

He voted on March 23, 2007, for an emergency spending bill approved 218-212 that included a timeline for ending combat by August 2008 at the latest.

Boswell also voted for a later version of that bill and to override a veto of it by President Bush.

The Iowa Democrat in addition supported a bill in July 2007 that would have required the government to begin a reduction in force in Iraq no later than 120 days after the date of the bill's enactment.

The bill said that the government should complete the reduction and transition to a limited troop presence no later than April 1, 2008.

Boswell's fifth vote, in November 2007, was for a bill that required that troops be redeployed from Iraq no later than 30 days after enactment, with a goal of completing redeployment by Dec. 15, 2008.

The votes reflected a shift for Boswell that began in January 2007, when he said on the House floor that his vote in favor of the Iraq war was based on "faulty, misleading intelligence," and he could not support an increase in forces.

Boswell said he could not reverse his vote in 2002, "but I can no longer acquiesce to a failed and tragic military exercise in Iraq."

During the 2006 congressional campaign, Boswell said a plan for eventual withdrawal was needed, but he would not name a date for that to happen.

In June 2006, he was one of 42 Democrats voting with the Republican majority for a resolution that opposed an arbitrary date for withdrawal.