Cramer, Davis vote to bring troops home

The U.S. House of Representatives voted Friday 218-212 to force the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by September 2008. Alabama's two Democratic Congressmen, Bud Cramer and Artur Davis, voted in favor of the bill, whereas all five Republicans voted against it.

(AP) ...Cramer, who voted to authorize the war and has previously resisted efforts to set war deadlines, countered that "we need to start looking at turning Iraq back to the Iraqis, and this bill allows that to begin."

Davis added that Congress has frequently attached conditions and set time constraints when authorizing war spending. He argued that the schedule provides plenty of time for an orderly withdrawal and said the battle against terrorism can't be won in Iraq.

"The reality is that radical Islamic fundamentalism has exploded into a civil war in Iraq and that (al-Qaida) will be a generation-long threat" Davis said. "These conflicts will rage on regardless of whether we are in combat in Iraq because they are rooted not in an assessment of our strength but in a permanent disdain for our values."

Al-Qaeda in Iraq has not yet announced how it would respond to a withdrawal of U.S. forces.