The Democratic Iraq-withdrawal resolution explained

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced the unified Democratic bill last week that would force George W. Bush to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq on a strict timeline, it was the culmination of many discussions among Senate Democrats to pull together one piece of legislation that would make everyone at least a little bit happy.

And Reid appears to have done that with S.J. Res. 9, the United States Policy in Iraq Resolution of 2007.

For something so important to the lives of so many people, the legislation -- which is binding upon Bush and will have the force of law -- is remarkably simple and straightforward. Its main premise is that the circumstances in place when Bush was granted authorization (in 2002) to attack Iraq -- even if those circumstances were fictitious -- have changed significantly and that the original resolution is effectively expired. It also states that American troops "should not be policing a civil war."

The meat of the resolution comes in the next part, which says that Bush must "commence the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this joint resolution, with the goal of redeploying, by March 31, 2008, all United States combat forces from Iraq…"