US Congress debates proposed bill rebuking Bush's Iraq strategy

This is a waste of lawmakers' time. How many days has this been going on? It feels like weeks.

Bush's decision to "surge" 21,500 additional troops into Iraq has met with fierce opposition from the Democratic-led Congress and increasingly from members of his own Republican party.

Critics of the president's plan received more ammunition on Thursday with a congressional report that suggested the troop hike would involve as many as 48,000 soldiers if non-combat support troops were taken into account.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office also said that the additional increase in troops could cost between 20 billion to 27 billion dollars over the first year of deployment.

In Congress, lawmakers had yet to forge a consensus on the precise wording of a non-binding resolution that would express opposition to the president's troop deployment. [emphasis mine]

Ya got that? Non-binding. The whole point is to make a hollow statement and get it into the Congressional Record.

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